The purpose for this paper: How can I engage students in thinking about climate change as a planning issue without glossing over or disregarding their growing skepticism about their own futures? This paper is not so much about how I teach, or how I could teach. Rather, it is more conceptual with respect to planning itself. More to the point: how does planning fit into this emerging, and dark, worldview? Planning, after all, is a discipline steeped in hope, and climate change seems to be bringing forth, at least for some, a palpable wave of despair. This is a direct challenge both the to idealism (if not happiness) of my students and to the principles underlying the practice of planning itself.