In 2018, a 30-minute documentary was premiered in San José, Costa Rica’s capital and my hometown. The film followed the early efforts of a handful of marine biologists who are fighting coral bleaching. They grow tiny bits of coral in underwater nurseries and once they’re big enough move them back to the reef, hoping to restore it.

Their pace is slow, possibly too slow to keep up with bleaching due to climate change. Warming waters swipe entire reefs in a matter of weeks. The biologists need months to nurture enough corals to restore a couple of square meters. Reef restoration seems like an impossible task, but they are relentless. It must be done to give corals a chance, so they are doing it.

It’s the same principle guiding young climate activists, atmospheric scientists and climate essayists. As author Rebecca Solnit wrote in 2016: “We don’t know what is going to happen, or how, or when, and that very uncertainty is the space of hope.”

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In the dark movie theatre, I felt a new bond with the scientists carrying baby corals and the filmmakers chasing after them. We are, indeed, losing this battle. They understand that, I believe, but in a tropical gulf thousands of miles away from where diplomats and politicians decide our carbon policies and international accords, a group of stubborn biologists and documentarists were refusing to give up. They were earning their own hope, one coral at a time.

I think of these dogged coral reef scientists whenever I’m asked, “What gives you hope?” in the context of climate change.

It’s a question full of nuance. Weighing it up, you have to consider the slew of recent record-breaking heatwaves, but also the indomitable force of schoolchildren protesting for their futures. It acknowledges our dire situation, yet suggests there might be a way forward. As climate change awareness goes mainstream – along with the feelings of anxiousness, pain and grief that come with it – this question has quickly become code for: “Where can I find hope?”