Weekly Response 2: You & Nature

(Green Roof. Vancouver, British Columbia)

Please consider how much you need the natural world.

I’m leaving this purposely open and ambiguous so that you each come up with your own definition of “need”/ “natural world” etc. and furthermore to define for WHAT you need/ don’t need the natural world. The first line in the foreward to a Sand Co. Almanac touches on this concept: “There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot” (vii, Leopold). Reflect on who is “telling you” that nature/the environment are important or not important to you and why.

Hopefully some of the skills/revelations from your observation paper will relate to this response and vica versa...

Derrick Jensen writes about how hope is the opposite of action. He claims that having hope is only passively having the desire that things in the world will get better as opposed to taking action yourself to change the way things are. If one only hopes, he asserts, then nothing gets accomplished because they are waiting on others to take action. Jensen also says that he believes his lack of hope is what propels him into action. He believes that not relying on hope will cause people to be proactive about any situation—the environment in particular.
I tend to agree with Jensen. I find that most people my age either don’t have an opinion on important issues or, if they do have an opinion, they remain on the sidelines and hope other people take action. I admit to being a member of the latter group. It is very easy to find excuses as to why you can’t be proactive (too busy, etc.), but if everyone tries relying on others to solve the world’s problems, no one will ever take action.
In lecture, many people defended the fact that most of our class knew next to nothing when it came to environmental issues but were able to answer the questions about materialistic topics. I think this parallels how people just hope things in the world will get better. Many people are willing to make excuses and be passive about the issues of the environment, but that is unproductive. Having empty hope is just as unproductive.
In class, most everyone was able to recognize the Mercedes-Benz logo but not the poison ivy plant. I realize it is much easier to be able to recognize logos since they are thrown at us and are shown with text, but nature is always all around us. Since it isn’t labeled, it is up to us to find out about it. We need to take action and find out for ourselves more about the environment, for that is the only way we can actively become informed. Gaining knowledge is what will encourage us to become active to help the environment. And perhaps, giving up on hope that things will get better will encourage us to inform ourselves.

Krista Clement

Many human interactions are based on the idea of hope. Whether it’s hoping to win the game or “I hope he’ll ask me out.” Hope has become a big part in society. Derrick Jensen takes this idea and twists it to show a new meaning to the idea of hope. His belief takes on the ideals of optimism but not laziness. Believing that something will change creates a barrier between a human and their goals. A person can sit back and believe that things will change instead of actually doing something about it. By giving up, one is motivated to make a stand for or against their cause. He basically states that it’s useless to be passive about life. For example, hoping to get a good grade isn’t good enough. You have to set out and give up on hope in order to do the work to get the grade you want.

I think the biggest impacts on me in the past lectures are just the shear numbers of things. The stats of the class were very interesting in that very few people knew what a clear cut forest was or that they could name more stores in the local mall than native plants. However I have to agree with many people who spoke about the fact that logos and stores are advertised and implanted in our memories since young ages. While parents may inform their children as to what poison ivy looks like and to avoid it, this warning or advertising isn’t as aggressive as other types. This leads to children being much more exposed to products rather than things in their environment.

Beyond Hope Response 1

Rebecca Tulis

 Many of us view hope as a necessary part of our lives for it not only pushes ourselves to grow, it allows us to view the world optimistically in a way that can promote change. Derrick Jensen, however, views hope as a distraction from succeeding in our tasks. Jensen states, “Hope is what keeps us chained to the system, the conglomerate of people and ideas and ideals that is causing the destruction of the Earth.” What he means is that we have a lot of hope, yet we don’t do anything about it to make that hope real.

It is hard to envision my life without hope. I see myself not being able to accomplish what I want. Hope is what keeps me going, it gives me a reason to make changes. Nevertheless, Jensen would say, hoping isn’t action and action is the only way to get things done. In the end of his article, Jensen stated, “When you give up on hope, you turn away from fear,” meaning when you are longing for change, one may not have the utmost confidence in their endeavor therefore do little to make that change happen. Looking Beyond hope is a way to forget about all the ifs and ands. No hope causes action and action defeats all our worries and hesitations.

My work and my beliefs concerning the environment could partake in a drastic change if I were to give up on hope. Nothing would affect myself, it is just me and my ideas. Jensen said that by giving up on hope, one dies but that may be good for  he or she is impervious to other people. In the lecture, we talked a lot about how we could think of 10 stores in our mall but we couldn’t name 10 species of plants in our area. The fact of the matter is, we know we need to make more of an effort to help the environment but questions like; Name a clear cut forest may not make sense to us because while we want there to be improvements, we are doing little to learn about our environment and make a difference. 

Beyond Hope Response

Pete Hall

Beyond Hope is a push for action and awareness of our environment and the issues we face and the crisis’s we have created for ourselves. Jenson pushes for immediate and through action to save our environment and he believes so passionately in the need for action, that his article is desperate in it’s call to action. He champions the environmentalists in their plight to save plants and animals ruined by humans and their actions. What keeps them diligently working, Jenson argues, is not a hope that the animals with thrive or the plants will survive but the action. Jenson surmises that they do not hope, but take action. They don’t wait for someone else to do it, they do it themselves. To Jenson, hope is the loss of action, the giving up on action and hoping someone else fixes the problems of the world or they all work themselves out. It is “a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless.”

I believe that Jenson has seen to many people just talk about saving a tree or changing the world and perhaps he has become bitter towards those who do not have the call to action of the environmentalists he champions. I to believe that hope can be a damaging article when it is not followed by actions. When we simply think to ourselves that something should change and then do nothing, nothing will change. Chances are good that most other people have thought the same thing and done nothing. However, the thought that hope is thus inherently evil I do not agree with. Without hope, we would never have the call to action and then action would never ensue. Perhaps Jenson believes this as well, but his article is to attention grabbing to take the time to make the distinction that hope without action is the real evil.

Beyond Hope: Response 1

Daryl Alexsy

Jensen describes in his article both the hopelessness of the state of our environment and the importance of losing the hope that is chaining us to the system that created it. He explains the futility in placing hopes on and beliefs in some higher power that will fix everything and states that hope belonged in Pandora’s box not as a savior against the other curses, but in the same league as them. He thus encourages that we unshackle ourselves from hope and do all that can be done after hope is gone, do the work ourselves.

After hope is gone, Jensen explains, people are then also freed from the ability to be manipulated towards other unseen forces, such as promises or threats. No longer can you be exploited in the same manner as hope or molded any further, and all is left is what you actually think. I found his exploration of hope to make me see a side of what I would have associated with the goodness of optimism as instead a useless and passive defense against the world around us. Assuming an active role in our own lives will I guess only logically be the only route for change.

I also found it interesting that he mentioned the way hope can be as exploitable as fear when taken against the backdrop of our most recent elections. Bush won in 2004 on the wave of fear generated by the war he had begun and garnered many votes from the panic created there from, while Obama campaigned in 2008 with his message of hope. Both campaigns maneuvered through these two emotions that “chase each other’s tails” in order to win voters, but before reading this article I would have never have related the two.

A Response to: “Beyond Hope”

From: Ryan Thurmer


Derrick Jensen’s article, “Beyond Hope”, summarizes his view of society and his reliance (or lack there of) in humanity; there is no hope. His disbelief in hope comes from his theory that hope is the enemy of action; it is what’s keeping “us chained to the system…causing the destruction of the Earth” (par 4). He sees hope as a useless tool, as if someday a flip will switch fixing all of society’s problems and reversing the harm done to the Earth. But he doesn’t have much hope as he says, he believes in action.


I see Jensen’s point of view; I understand his frustration in trying to accomplish something where people believe in a cause but then do nothing to make some change or reversal. I agree relying solely on hope will never cure anything, or fix any situation. But we can act. We can act and believe in our actions and endeavors with a hope for a better future. If we have no view of a better tomorrow why should we do anything to progress our existence, society, or the planet? We would have no reason to. Instead of completely throwing hope aside we can transform our emotional trust in the future into a progressive optimism that requires action, and disregards fear.


We can turn many things around in this world, for the better, if we act upon our optimism in an improved world; giving our view of the future physicality in words and actions.

Derrick Jensen "Beyond Hope"