For the last 20 years, Rob Hopkins has organized community-led, bottom-up solutions to the climate crisis, from creating community energy companies to food systems. He joins host Esty Dinur to talk about his latest book, How to Fall in Love with the Future: A Time Traveller’s Guide to Changing the World, that draws on his career of community-based work and asks, what would our activism look like if we had a longing for the future?

Hopkins says that there’s so much to fight for and to demand that our governments do to serve their people. But we need counternarratives to the dominating stories of climate collapse and extinction that put forward the idea that in the future, we’ve won. Hopkins takes his cue from artists and activists like Black Quantum Futurism and adrienne marie brown.

Cultivating imagination and a longing for the future requires new skills in activists’ toolbox. And Hopkins recommends looking to poets like Robert Desnos, street artists, songwriters, and scriptwriters for inspiration who can help us heal from the collective assault on our imaginations. Imagination, for Hopkins, is not a luxury, but a necessity in our darkest moments. 

You can sign up for Hopkins’ newsletter and stream his album, Field recordings from the Future. 

Rob Hopkins is the co-founder of Transition Network and Transition Town Totnes. He is the author of several books, including The Transition Handbook, From What Is to What If, and How to Fall in Love with the Future. An Ashoka Fellow, Hopkins has spoken at TED Global and several TEDx events, and he appeared in the French film phenomenon Demain. He holds a PhD from the University of Plymouth, as well as 2 honoris causas. Hopkins is a director of Totnes Community Development Society, and he runs ‘Imagination Catalyst’ trainings for a wide range of organizations, including Balenciaga and Patagonia. He hosted the podcast From What If to What Next. In November 2022, he was made an Honorary Citizen of Liège, Belgium, by the mayor of the city.

Featured image: cover of How to Fall in Love with the Future: A Time Traveller’s Guide to Changing the World by Rob Hopkins. 

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