April 29, 2026

Spill the (Green) Tea with Rob Hopkins

54 minutes

Rob's two most recent books, From What Is to What If and How to Fall in Love with the Future, have made him one of the most distinctive voices in the climate space, not for telling people how bad things are, but for insisting that giving people something to long for is the most radical thing any of us can do.

In this episode, we cover:

Why cynicism isn't clever, it's just lazy! It feels like intelligence because it's always proved right; you can forever find reasons to despair. But Rob argues it's a self-reinforcing spiral that actively prevents the kind of action that might change things, and that hopelessness isn't a breeding ground for good things.

"Hoping to" versus "hoping that" —passive hope (hoping that something will happen) is very different from active, grounded hope.

The cultivation of longing at scale is the biggest task of the climate movement, and the people who know how to cultivate desire aren't scientists, they're artists, poets, and the people who work in advertising.

The internet as a war on attention, and what that means for green communicators

What emerges from this conversation is both a provocation and an invitation. The future as we currently envision it is dark and scary and we need to create a sense of longing or what Rob calls “memories of the future” for a more positive outcome to give people something to move towards rather than run away from.

More from Rob

Website: https://www.robhopkins.net/

Podcast: https://www.robhopkins.net/podcast/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yoodooright1968

Resources mentioned:

From What Is to What If by Rob Hopkins

How to Fall in Love with the Future by Rob Hopkins

The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis by Amitav Ghosh

2040 — documentary by Damon Gameau, described as "an experiment in evidence-based dreaming"

Hurry Slowly podcast hosted by Jocelyn K. Glei

Screw This… Let's Try Something Else podcast hosted by Maryam Pasha and Matt Golding

Purpose Disruptors — a network of advertising insiders working to transform the industry to tackle climate change

Muslim Futures

NK Tegelwippen — the Dutch national tile-flipping competition

More from Katie

Green, Not Greenwashed: Get the clarity and confidence you need to talk about your eco-efforts without the fear of greenwashing.
Follow Katie on Instagram @katietreggiden.1

More from Malin

Greenwashing 101: Green or Greenwashed? Essential insights for sales and marketing professionals to make sense of sustainability and avoid falling into greenwashing's trap.
Follow Malin on LinkedIn @malin-cunningham

PS Looking for Brackish? That has a new home at https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/podcast

...more

View all episodes

By Katie Treggiden, Malin Cunningham

4.9

99 ratings