Eco‑Literacy and Critical Thinking: Learning to Discern Hopium from Hope
We’ve been raised with a shallow version of hope. Limited as well, and postured as a virtue that positive people aspire to have.
This kind is ephemeral, easily expunged by the next headline. We’re told to “stay hopeful” as if it’s a mood we can control, a position of optimism we must maintain to be perceived as productive.
But with the spectre of collapse, that kind of hope is something we need to move beyond.
Real hope, the kind that survives dark times, is not about simply feeling good. It’s about staying aware when everything and everyone around us encourages unquestioning loyalty to systems and processes that we know aren’t working. It’s about not falling into despair without cloaking ourselves in denial. It’s about staying true to what matters, even when the outcome is uncertain.
Hope, in this deeper sense, is not naïve. It is intelligent and inquisitive. It seeks to understand the science and the emotion. It reads more than just the IPCC reports, or the latest economic forecasts, or media stories about avian influenza. It accepts grief and sadness but still looks to build a future. It is committing to others, to community, while still doing what one can to stand up for what is right.
Hopium: The Counterfeit of Hope
There is another force at play, one that pretends to be hope but numbs us to what is real. One that allows nothing to change. I first learnt about this while listening to the Breaking Down Collapse podcast. This is hopium.
Hopium is the drug that dulls us into a belief in false futures. It promotes that salvation is coming, that technology will rescue us, that leaders will awaken, that collapse will be averted if we simply “believe” those in charge have our best interests at heart. It flourishes through the use of slogans, promoting quick fixes and fantasies of inevitability. It tells us that someone else, somewhere else, will do the work.
The danger of hopium is not so much that it distracts us from the urgency of the action needed. Rather, it numbs us into waiting and continuing to consume rather than actively seeking change. It beguiles us with the promise that ‘business as usual’ can carry on indefinitely and that we don’t have to compromise anything, let alone give up some hard won comforts of our standard of living. We assume that the institutions that surround us will protect us, that there are no alternatives, and that we don’t need to fight.
The problem is, hopium is not harmless wishful thinking. It is another guise of denial, and with denial will come disaster.
Eco‑Literacy as Critical Thinking
To navigate the metacrisis, we need more than optimism, we need literacy. Eco‑literacy. The ability to discern between hope and hopium. This is one of the hardest concepts to get across when I teach at university
Eco‑literacy is not just knowing ecological facts. It is the ability to consider the living systems around us, to understand interdependence, and then identify when a narrative aligns with ecological reality or whether it is a fantasy crafted to stop us thinking or acting.
Critical thinking is one of the underpinning skills of eco‑literacy. It allows us to review the stories we are fed, to ask:
Does this story encourage responsibility, or does it allow me to disconnect?
Does it promote a shining future, business as usual, with the trapping of an improved standard of living, all I have to do is trust?
Is it consistent with other narratives I am seeing, hearing or reading, ones based in science?
What is the agenda of the author? What can they gain from my not questioning?
Learning to identify hopium is like learning to read the land or the sea. You begin to notice the signs: the too‑easy promises, notions that “someone else” will fix it. You learn to distrust the drug-like rush of optimism that requires no effort and no risk.
The Myth of Passive Hope
In our culture we have a myth that hope is passive, that it’s something we either have or don’t. It tells us that if we don’t feel hopeful, we shouldn’t act, or even socialise. That we must wait until we’re inspired, uplifted, positive.
But emotion follows engagement. I believe that we don’t act because we feel hopeful, rather, we feel hopeful because we act. Hope is grown through action, in the moment we choose to acknowledge and do something about the trouble rather than scroll past it.
Hopium, by contrast, tells us to wait for the feeling first. Or worse, that the action isn’t necessary, because people better, brighter, cleverer than us are taking the action instead.
Hope as Resistance
In a culture such as ours that is addicted to speed, spectacle, and certainty, a considered and relational hope is radical thinking indeed. To hold hope in this way is to resist both despair and denial. It is to say: I will not be numb. I will not look away. I will not give up on what I love. I will speak up, shout even. And I will act.
Collapse is not the end of the story. It is a changing, a chance to move into deeper ways of being, of living more authentically and in tune with our environment. Hope, then, is not the opposite of grief. It’s what we do with the grief, how we morph it into action for the future.
Hopium does not align with grief. It seeks the stultify with easy answers, to promise that “everything will be fine”. But everything will not be fine. Business as usual will not happen. Hopium will always tempt us with solutions, easy answers or shiny rewards. That there will relief without responsibility or sacrifice. But eco‑literacy, sharpened by critical thinking, helps us to stay awake.
So what does it mean?
So what does it mean to engage with hope beyond hopium?
It means checking in on your neighbour, repairing things instead of replacing them, learning or teaching how to listen to the land, building local food systems, sharing tools, telling stories that remind us we belong to each other.
And acknowledging changes are happening, but keeping on fighting
This generally isn’t glamorous and often it’s boring. Sometimes it’s heartbreaking. But it’s showing up, again and again, when no one else does.
So when the weight of what’s happening feels unbearable, don’t ask yourself if you feel hopeful (or tell yourself you should feel hopeful). Ask:
What can I tend today?
Who can I connect with?
What story am I feeding or engaging with or giving power to?
Because hope isn’t something we wait for, it’s something we undertake together.