Hope and Uncertainty
Elwha River above where the Glines Canyon Dam had been, August 2019.
In the May 2020 issue of the magazine Lion’s Roar, renowned environmental activist and author Joanna Macy says this in answer to a question about whether she has hope that humanity can wake up from the environmental crisis we’re in and turn things around:
“I find that assuring people there’s hope, including myself, is not all that useful. In Buddhism, there is no word for hope. It would be viewed as a distraction from what’s at hand. I think all we can really affirm is where we want to put our attention. I have a choice: do I want to give up and surrender to the great unraveling, or do I want to join those who are working for a liveable future?”
Macy goes on to discuss what I feel is really behind the need for hope: uncertainty. Life itself, in its entirety, exists in a realm of uncertainty, and Uncertainty rivets the attention and concentrates the mind wonderfully. This circumstance can be thrilling when something unexpectedly turns out to our liking, and supremely disappointing when it doesn’t. In between these two extremes of outcome, hope rambles around our hearts and minds, spurring us to action or discouraging us into passivity.
Last week, we attended the celebration of “10 Dam-Free Years and Counting” of the Elwha River. Hosted by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, the event included four presentations: 1) what scientists have seen since the two dams came down on the Elwha River; 2) dam removal efforts on the Klamath River in southern Oregon and northern California; 3) the work of Open Rivers Fund, a program under the organization Resources Legacy Fund, which supports efforts to remove obsolete dams; and 4) ongoing efforts in Europe to restore river and ecosystem health by gathering information on existing dams and developing strategies to remove them. The damage these barriers cause is unequivocal. Water quality, important fisheries, general ecosystem health have all been degraded by dams. Importantly, public support has been and continues to grow for removing them. The woman who presented on dam removal in Europe said that she and her colleagues were directly influenced by the success of the effort to remove the Elwha dams.
I definitely agree with Joanna Macy’s words that requiring hope, or certainty, can be too much of a distraction (and potentially paralyzing). The efforts to remove dams on the Klamath River have been ongoing for two decades, and there sometimes, according to the presenter, seemed to be little hope that success would result. But the Yurok Tribe and other groups never gave up. And just one week ago, on August 26, 2022, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released the final Environmental Impact Statement that recommends removal of the lower four Klamath River dams. This is an effort I haven’t known much about, but how hopeful I felt in the audience this week, listening to the stories of those who persevered while being uncertain and even possibly hopeless at times.
I think advocating on behalf of the environment and those who cannot speak for themselves, the fish, the frogs, all the species we cannot see, is about one thing: getting up each morning and doing the next right thing. Every single day. Without hope of fruition. But working together, as Joanna Macy says, for a liveable future.
