The Marketplace Magazine Jan-Feb 2022 issue

Books in brief

Towards action based on rational hope

Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s case for hope and healing in a divided world by Katharine Hayhoe (One Signal Publishers, 2021, 308 pages, $27 US).

For Katharine Hayhoe, acting in response to a changing climate is about more than preserving a better world for our children and grandchildren.

She views the work as carrying out the stewardship mandate given by creator God in Genesis, the first book of the Bible.

Hayhoe is a Canadian Christian who is a climate scientist at Texas Tech University. She has faced much resistance when speaking to secular and faith-based groups about the need for dialogue and action around “global weirding.”

Yet talk about the subject we all must, she argues. Saving Us grew out of a TED talk that has been viewed millions of times.

Hayhoe works to move the conversation on this sensitive topic past the political polarization that often accompanies the subject. Facts and guilt trips don’t work, she notes. Appealing to the heart, to shared values, is key to connecting and bonding with people who think differently about the issue, she writes.

Carefully examining the different ways people do think about this topic, she provides thoughtful suggestions on how to respond.

She makes a case for rational hope, a vision of a better future and the importance of love and care for our global neighbors.

Programs designed to alleviate poverty can increase people’s resilience to climate impacts and

reduce refugee crises, she writes, making connections between health, food, water, economic and justice implications of the climate issue.

Saving Us is a useful guide to speaking important truths in love. - MS

23 The Marketplace January February 2022