The future is uncertain, so why give up hope?

What is hope, really? That question can be answered in many ways. For example, the Associate Professor Jaap Bos, a columnist for DUB's Dutch page, writes that “hope is a living organism that sings for you, a companion, an ally greater than yourself.” However poetic, that doesn’t mean much to me. Nor does the psychological definition of hope as a "cognitive-motivational construct", to which Bos objects.

I'm looking for a definition that gives me more of a foothold, so I've decided to consult the General Dutch Dictionary (ANW). There, hope is defined as "the desire that something will become reality". Anyone who longs for a particular future has hope, and those who are hopeless lack that desire.

The winning Deep Dive question thus becomes a question about desire. This allows me to continue my search for answers to the question: “How can we stay hopeful about the future?”

According to the ANW’s definition, the answer seems simple: just keep longing! You can just do that; it doesn’t take much. At first glance, we also seem free to long for things. But is that really the case? Can we also be persuaded to long for things? Or convinced to hope? Or, conversely, to stop doing so?

Let me give you an example.

The Netherlands has set itself the goal of becoming climate-neutral by 2050, but imagine someone – let’s call him Teun – who doesn’t believe we’ll achieve this. Although Teun thinks it would be nice if the Netherlands were climate-neutral by 2050, he no longer longs for it. He has lost hope.

So, an invitation to "simply" start hoping again isn’t enough to persuade Teun. Perhaps a few positive facts might still win him over.

“Did you know that solar energy production has become 73 per cent cheaper since 2010 because the amount of solar energy generated has increased significantly?” You could give it a go. And if that doesn’t work, we could try one of the other climate silver linings mentioned by the UU Professor of Climate Physics Erik van Sebille in his DUB column, such as more positive predictions regarding climate change, the ban on certain harmful chemicals, and increasing fuel efficiency in industry.

But do these facts offer hope? Will positive facts make Teun hopeful again?

The answer to that question, it seems to me, is "no, not necessarily”. A sceptic like Teun is bound to have fewer cheerful facts at his disposal. And he won’t be afraid to use them to emphasise his sense of hopelessness! This will then lead to a firefight of facts. And once those are on the table, what then? Who wins? Do we still have hope for a climate-neutral 2050, or not?

This situation brings to mind a classic example: is the glass half full or half empty? The facts are clear: the liquid is filled to the 50 percent mark. Yet that does not make it half full or half empty. It's the same with hope: hope doesn't depend on facts, but rather on the person who can keep hoping.

Since 1990, the IPCC – the UN panel that examines climate change – has been attempting to predict how much warmer the Earth will become by 2100. The organisation does this by combining scientific research (the latest report contains 66,000 references) with assumptions to outline future scenarios.

Detlef van Vuuren, Professor of Geosciences at Utrecht University, and his team drew up the latest IPCC climate scenarios. They conclude that, with only five years to go until 2100, the most optimistic and pessimistic predictions will no longer matter. Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees is no longer achievable, but, according to the IPCC, the doomsday scenario of a 4- to 6-degree rise in temperature will not become a reality either.

One might wonder what this means for hope. The fact that the most likely scenario paints a more positive picture can certainly be a source of hope. But more importantly, even accurate predictions are revised sometimes. Besides, there is a great deal of variation between the possible scenarios, which shows that the future remains uncertain even with our current predictions. That is both a reason to be hopeful and a reason not to lose hope. After all, without uncertainty, there is no hope, is there?

You might argue that giving up hope protects you from disappointment. After all, longing for a particular future exposes you to the disappointment that awaits if it doesn't become reality. If you give up hope, then disappointment cannot take hold of you. At least, that's what you might assume. In reality, things work differently.

Research shows that chronically ill people who remain hopeful fare better than their hopeless counterparts, as hope leads to greater self-confidence and a better quality of life. Hopeful people also have greater mental resilience; they can cope better with setbacks. Unfulfilled hope is one such setback.

Here's yet another reason to remain hopeful. Although giving up hope may seem to protect you from disappointment, staying hopeful turns out to be a better way to do that. So be careful about giving up hope! Keep hoping!

Of course, the trick is to find the right balance; too many severe disappointments will make even the most hopeful among us unhappy in the long run.