Ayana Elizabeth Johnson on making climate action cool

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Flora Lichtman (1:05)

Hey, it's Flora and you're listening to Science Friday.

Today, we are bringing you a conversation we had during a live on stage event produced by the media organization, Grist. I sat down with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, one of the most prominent voices in the climate movement. She's a marine biologist by training, but as she saw the effects of climate change intensify, she's taken on more public-facing advocacy work. Her work is expansive. She helped organize the March for Science. She founded a think tank focused on coastal cities. She started two podcasts about climate solutions, and she's published a couple of books including most recently, What If We Get It Right. Today, I'm excited to share that conversation, exploring the state of the climate movement, climate solutions, and Ayana's path.

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, welcome to Science Friday.

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (1:57)

I'm so pleased to be here. I love science. I love Fridays. I love the radio.

Flora Lichtman (2:03)

And our show. So I know that solutions are your jam. Are you a glass half full kind of person?

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (2:14)

No.

Flora Lichtman (2:15)

Really?

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (2:16)

No, it's, I find it to be like very disconcerting and also sort of hilarious that everyone assumes I'm an optimist.

Flora Lichtman (2:23)

Your book's called What If We Get It Right.

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (2:25)

It's a question. It's like a huge question mark. I love that we have climate solutions. We have so many that are like ready to deploy, ready to implement in every city, in every town, in every rural area, across the world, in the oceans, forests, agriculture, buildings, transportation. We have so many solutions. Will we implement them quickly enough to address the crisis that we face? I have no idea, right? There's so many political headwinds. There's so much like entrenched interests and lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry and our freaking government, Congress, the Republican Party is the party of climate denial now, right? Our president says climate change is a hoax, right? So there's no reason to assume that we're going to get it right. But there is a possibility that we could get it more right than it would be if we did not bother to try, which is like the secret title of the book, which would not have become a bestseller.

What if we get it as right as it's still possible? Because species are already going extinct, the planet is already warmer, sea level is already rising, ice is already melting, right? Like we don't have a time machine among the things that we've invented to help address this crisis. So I'm not an optimist.

I'm not motivated by hope, but I am absolutely not a quitter. There's like a tenacity that's, I'm like, why would we not be trying to do this, especially on an issue where increments matter so much? The difference between one and a half and two degrees and three degrees Celsius of warming is hundreds of millions of lives.

Flora Lichtman (4:17)

So you went from being a scientist, you are still a scientist, of course, but you were a scientist and then became a, you know, very public figure in the last.

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (4:24)

It's so weird.

Flora Lichtman (4:25)

Is it weird?

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (4:26)

I mean, you don't like, so when we first met, like in Gimlet, in podcasts, there were not video podcasts. People wouldn't like recognize you on the street if you had a podcast, right? And so, you know, and also like being a marine biologist, and my first jobs were in like the federal bureaucracy at EPA and NOAA in the policy office. I thought that was going to be my whole life.