Mark: A UN study says a million species could go extinct in the next few decades. We've already wiped out 60 percent of all mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles. Faced with that, Michelle, how can anyone logically feel hopeful? It almost sounds delusional. Michelle: It does, and that's the exact, brutal question at the heart of An Invitation to Hope by the legendary Jane Goodall and her collaborator Douglas Abrams. It confronts that feeling of despair head-on. Mark: Right, Jane Goodall. I think most people know her for her groundbreaking work with chimpanzees in the 60s, but this book feels different. It's less about the jungle and more about... our own survival, right? Michelle: Exactly. It was written during the pandemic, as part of a series that also featured figures like the Dalai Lama. It’s a dialogue, a conversation about how to find a way forward. And her first, most radical argument is that hope isn't a feeling we wait for. It’s a tool we build. Mark: A tool? That’s an interesting way to put it. Most people think of hope as this warm, fuzzy thing you either have or you don't. Michelle: And that’s the first idea she wants to dismantle. She defines hope as "what enables us to keep going in the face of adversity." But here’s the kicker: "It is what we desire to happen, but we must be prepared to work hard to make it so." Mark: Huh. That sounds a lot like just... hard work. Where's the 'hope' in that? It sounds more like grim determination. Like you're just gritting your teeth and pushing through the misery. Michelle: That’s the perfect question, because it gets to the core of it. It’s not grim determination. It’s determination fueled by the possibility of a better outcome. And the best way to understand this is to look at her own story, long before she was a global icon.

Michelle: Let's go back to 1960. Jane is a young woman in Gombe, Tanzania. She has no university degree, her funding is about to run out, and the scientific community is deeply skeptical of a woman doing this kind of work alone. For months, every time she got near the chimpanzees, they would just take one look at her and disappear into the forest. Mark: Wow, that sounds incredibly demoralizing. I would have packed my bags after a few weeks. How do you keep going? Michelle: This is where hope becomes a verb. She had her mother with her for the first few months, who was a constant source of encouragement, telling her to just be patient. And her mentor, Dr. Louis Leakey, had this unwavering belief in her. That external support sustained her own internal hope—the active belief that if she just kept climbing those hills, day after day, something would eventually change. It wasn't a passive wish; it was a strategy. She acted as if success were possible, and that action is what eventually led to the breakthrough with David Greybeard, the first chimp to trust her. Mark: I see. So the hope wasn't just a feeling in her head; it was embodied in the act of getting up and climbing the hill again, even when there was no evidence it would work. It’s the engine for the action. Michelle: Precisely. It’s a survival trait. She says flatly, "without it we perish." But let's take it to an even darker place. What happens when hope seems truly impossible? Years later, her husband, Derek Bryceson, was dying of cancer. It was a brutal, painful illness. Mark: I remember reading that part. His last words, which she shares in the book, were, "I didn’t know such pain was possible." That’s a level of suffering that feels like it would extinguish any light. How do you find hope there? Michelle: You’re right, it feels like a place where hope dies. And for a time, it did. She was consumed by grief. But she didn't find hope by waiting for the pain to magically disappear. She found it through action. She went back to her childhood home in England and found comfort in the simple, loyal companionship of her dog. Then, she returned to the forest in Gombe. Mark: Back to the place of her life's work. Michelle: Yes, and she found solace there. Not because it was a magical escape, but because the forest reminded her of the great, impersonal cycles of life and death. She saw that life continues, that new shoots grow from charred ground. She kept busy with her work. The hope wasn't a sudden epiphany; it was something she rebuilt, piece by piece, through deliberate action—connecting with nature, focusing on her purpose. It wasn't about denying the darkness, but about choosing to act in a way that creates light. Mark: "There is a lot of darkness, but our actions create the light." That's a quote from the book, isn't it? Michelle: That's the one. It’s the perfect summary of her philosophy. Hope isn't the absence of darkness; it's our response to it. Mark: Okay, so hope is an action, a verb. I get that. But you still need a reason to act. Given the data I opened with—the million species at risk, the 60% we've already lost—it's easy to feel completely powerless. What's the evidence that our small actions even matter in the face of global catastrophe? Michelle: And that is the bridge to the second half of the book. Once she establishes what hope is, she spends the rest of the time giving us concrete, tangible evidence for why we should deploy it. She offers four main pillars of evidence.

Mark: Four pillars. This is where the book gets really practical, moving from philosophy to proof. Where does she start? Michelle: She starts with something that seems almost too fragile to hold up hope: the resilience of nature itself. And the story she uses is just breathtaking. It's the story of the Survivor Tree. Mark: The one from Ground Zero in New York? Michelle: The very same. After the 9/11 attacks, amidst all that rubble and steel, cleanup crews found a single Callery pear tree. It was utterly crushed between two blocks of concrete. It had a mangled trunk, snapped roots, and only one single living branch. It was destined for the dump. Mark: Just another piece of debris, basically. Michelle: Exactly. But one of the workers, a woman named Rebecca Clough, pleaded for it. She insisted they give it a chance. So they moved this wreck of a tree to a nursery in the Bronx. The nurseryman who took it on said it was one of the hardest cases he’d ever seen. But they cared for it. They tended to that one living branch. And slowly, miraculously, it started to heal. Years later, they brought it back and planted it at the 9/11 Memorial. Today, it stands tall, covered in blossoms every spring. It’s a living symbol of resilience. Mark: Wow. But what's interesting there is that the tree didn't just survive on its own. It took human intervention, human care. It took our intellect to recognize its value and our skill to nurse it back to health. Michelle: You've just connected two of her pillars perfectly! That's her second reason for hope: the amazing human intellect. Nature is resilient, but our intellect, when used wisely, can be a powerful partner in that healing. Jane has this beautiful quote: "True wisdom requires both thinking with our head and understanding with our heart." We had the intellectual capacity to save the tree, but it was our heart, our compassion, that made us want to. Mark: But that same human intellect created the weapons of war and the systems that are destroying the planet. She acknowledges that, right? She says an intelligent animal wouldn't destroy its only home. Michelle: Absolutely. She’s not a naive cheerleader for humanity. She says our intellect is a tool, and it can be wielded by greed and fear, or it can be wielded by wisdom and compassion. The choice is ours. Which brings her to her third pillar, and maybe her most passionate one: the power of young people. Mark: This feels like a big theme for her. I know she started a whole global program around it. Michelle: Yes, Roots & Shoots. And it started just as simply as the Survivor Tree. In 1991, she was in Tanzania talking to a group of high school students. They were all worried—about poaching, about pollution, about poverty. They felt helpless. And Jane’s response was simple: "What are you going to do about it?" Mark: A direct challenge. Michelle: A direct challenge. So these twelve students formed the first Roots & Shoots group. Their first project? They decided to clean up a local beach that was covered in trash. At first, people on the beach mocked them. They laughed at these kids picking up garbage. But the kids kept at it. And soon, other people on the beach, inspired by their persistence, started to join in. That small act of a dozen kids rippled outwards. Today, Roots & Shoots is in over 60 countries with hundreds of thousands of members. It’s proof that small, local actions can and do scale. Mark: So it’s about creating a contagion of hope. "Hope is contagious. Your actions will inspire others." Another one of her quotes. Michelle: You got it. And that leads to the final pillar, the one that underpins everything else: the indomitable human spirit. This is about the people who face impossible odds and refuse to be broken. Mark: The people who seem to run on a different kind of fuel. Michelle: Exactly. And the story she tells here is one of my favorites. It’s about a man named Gary Haun. He was a Marine who lost his sight in an accident at age 21. People told him his life was effectively over. He decided he was going to become a magician. Mark: A blind magician? How is that even possible? Michelle: That’s what everyone asked! But he did it. He taught himself incredible sleight-of-hand tricks, all by touch and memory. He became a successful performer. Years ago, he met Jane and gave her a little stuffed monkey. He named it Mr. H. He told her, "Take him with you on your travels." Jane has now taken Mr. H to over 60 countries. She says at least two million people have touched this little monkey. It has become this global talisman of hope. Gary, a man who could have surrendered to darkness, chose to create magic instead, and that spirit has now literally touched millions of people around the world through Jane. Mark: That’s incredible. The blind magician, the kids on the beach, the broken tree. They all tell the same story, just on different scales. Michelle: They do. It’s a powerful, cumulative case. It’s not about finding one magic bullet solution, but about recognizing that the potential for healing and renewal is all around us—in nature, in our youth, in our own hearts, and in our brilliant, complicated minds.

Mark: So it’s a feedback loop. The indomitable spirit of one person, like the blind magician Gary Haun, inspires hope in millions. The power of youth, like in Roots & Shoots, creates tangible change on the ground. The human intellect, when guided by compassion, can restore what we've broken, and nature's incredible resilience shows us that recovery is always possible. It’s not one thing, it’s all of them working together. Michelle: Exactly. And Jane's ultimate message, especially in the conclusion she wrote during the pandemic, is that this isn't a theoretical exercise. She often uses that famous saying, "We have not inherited the Earth from our ancestors but borrowed it from our children." Hope isn't a gift we receive; it's a debt we owe to the future. It’s a responsibility. Mark: That reframes everything. It’s not about making ourselves feel better. It’s about fulfilling an obligation. So the one concrete action is to stop waiting for hope to find us, and instead, go out and create a reason for it, even a small one. Michelle: Precisely. Jane says, "The cumulative effect of millions of small ethical actions will truly make a difference." So the question she leaves us with, and the one we should leave our listeners with, is: What small, ethical action can you take today? What will be your reason for hope? Mark: Find your reason, or make your reason. I like that. It feels much more powerful than just wishing things were better. Michelle: It is. It’s an invitation, after all. An invitation to get to work. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.