Earlier this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change dropped a horrifying ultimatum on the world: we have a mere 12 years to to mobilize a World War II level effort to change the effects of climate change to avoid a cataclysmic future.
Like many people, I try to be a conscientious and informed citizen. I try to stay abreast of all that is happening in the world, and I try to effect change in my own small way. But this IPCC report completely paralyzed me with terror. How do we even begin to effect change in the face of such a daunting task, with the lives of future generations and entire species at stake?
I can’t imagine that I’m the only person who feels this way. Many of us, when confronted with such huge realities, simply shut down, and that’s the very worst thing we can do.
To try to help myself and others who might be feeling a similar paralysis, I invited my friend Peterson Toscano onto the show to talk me and my audience down from the ledge.
Peterson Toscano is a climate activist, LGBT activist, biblical scholar, and actor. This conversation is what my soul needed, and I found his hope contagious. He offered some new perspectives that I’d never considered before, and while I still struggle with climate fear, my conversation with Peterson has greatly encouraged me.
As Peterson reminds us in this conversation, there is such a thing Climate change denial, but there is also such a thing as climate hope denial. More than anything right now, we need hope that can inspire us to act, to create a more compassionate, connected, and enlightened humanity.
Find Peterson’s Citizens Climate Radio here.
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Stephen Bradford Long 
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