How to believe in humanity

Written by Simon Olling Rebsdorf, PhD, Climate and Science Advocate 

I used to believe in humanity.

Not blindly. But with a kind of tired hope. I believed we could grow. That empathy could stretch beyond the present, beyond ourselves. That we were capable of imagining life that wasn’t ours, yet. I believed in potential. In creativity. In reason. In care.

Now, at 53, I’m not so sure.

Not about love. Not about beauty. Not about my children, wife and family. But about our willingness to do the right thing. Especially when it costs us something.

We know exactly what we’re doing to the planet. We know we’re consuming like we had four Earths to burn through. We know what we’re destroying. And still, nothing changes.

We keep choosing comfort. Routine. Growth. We tell ourselves stories about systems and inertia. We nod. We scroll. We move on.

And it breaks me – tears welling up – when I see a photo of my son on his first day of school in 2017. Bright-eyed. Standing there with his backpack under the august Sun, ready to meet the world. He believed it would be good. That he’d fit in. That it was going to make sense. I remember thinking I could protect him.

Now I look at that picture and feel a lump in my throat. Because I know better. I know the world is not a good place. And I know I can’t shield him from that.

That’s the deepest grief I know. Loving someone so much, and knowing what they’re walking into.

I’m not writing this to inspire anyone. Nor to convey pessimism. I’m writing because I can’t stay silent. Because if there’s anything left in me that still believes, it lives somewhere between truth and exhaustion.

If I still believe in something, it’s love. Not the romantic kind. The staying kind. The kind that keeps you up at night and keeps you moving anyway. I believe in my children. My wife. My friends. My family. I believe in music that breaks through the fog. In the way the forest still breathes. In writing. When it comes. Raw. Uninvited. Necessary.

I don’t know if that’s enough. I fear not.

A close friend just read through Bruno Latour’s Facing Gaia. He wrote to me, shaken:

“This isn’t a crisis. We have to accept that it’s final. […] We shouldn’t talk about hope anymore. We should talk about treatment. We’ll be remembered as the ones who could have done something but didn’t. We’re stuck in old stories.”

I agree. That hits me hard too. Not because I haven’t felt it. But because someone else dares to say it out loud.

This isn’t just a crisis. That word doesn’t fit anymore. A crisis is something with an end. A turning point. A window of opportunity.

What we’re in now is a condition. A new climate regime. Not approaching. Already here.

And still, we decorate collapse with slogans.

Green transition

Net zero by 2050

Every small step counts

Good intentions. Wrong framework. The language of before, applied to the after.

I can’t pretend anymore. Not as a father. Not as a human being.

This is why I started Eudaimon.dk. Not as a campaign. Not as a project of hope. But as a way of staying honest. Staying present. Treating the wound without covering it up.

If anything still matters, it starts there.

Not to be saved.

But to be human.