Ayana Elizabeth Johnson on the Climate Crisis: “We Don’t Get to Give Up”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: And now, a slightly hopeful look, maybe a very hopeful look at how to not only confront the climate crisis that grips our world, but also how to flourish in the process. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a leading marine biologist and climate policy expert sat down with Hari Sreenivasan to discuss her vision for a thriving, sustainable future. And she explains how a diverse set of experts in fields such as farming, finance, and fashion helped shape her ideas.

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HARI SREENIVASAN, CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Professor Ayana Johnson, thanks so much for joining us. First of all, the title of your book, “What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures.” I have read several books about kind of climate change and climate science, never really one with this particular kind of twist on it. Why did you want to approach all the conversations that you featured in this book with this particular band or this thesis?

AYANA ELIZABETH JOHNSON, AUTHOR, “WHAT IF WE GET IT RIGHT?”: The title question really helps to frame or reframe the climate conversation around solutions. I think so often we’re talking about the problem or we’re talking exclusively about technology and electricity, and we’re not really thinking about all the solutions we have at our fingertips and the transformation that’s required to our economy and society in order to accelerate implementation of all of those. So, I really just wanted to say to people, we have the solutions we need, right? We know how to do clean energy and public transit and green our buildings and shift our agriculture and protect and restore ecosystems, right? None of this like a big mystery. We — it’s just a matter of the speed and scale at which we’re able to get those solutions happening out in the world. And as you mentioned, this book is, in many ways, an anthology that features interviews with 20 experts, colleagues who are friends of mine, who have helped me to answer this question and see the way forward in terms of visions of climate futures.

SREENIVASAN: You know, how do you kind of walk that line, I guess, between giving people some hope and maybe breaking them out of their existing narrative? OK. Well, this well beyond our reach. The scale of this so massive. I’ve seen these numbers. Ah, what can I do? Sort of that level of kind of hopelessness, to kind of making sure that it’s not the other way or the other extreme, we’re like, well, we can fix this if you just start recycling tomorrow?

JOHNSON: Well, first, I’ll say people feel overwhelmed by the climate crisis. That’s actually a totally reasonable thing to feel. It’s the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced, right? And we have really done a lot to throw our ecosystems, our atmosphere out of balance. So, it is a lot to process. I can understand why people are anxious and worried or depressed about it. But we don’t get to like give up on the future of life on this planet, right? Like, who are we to give up on Earth, each other, like we can’t actually all go to Mars. So, we have to make it work here. It’s just a matter of, really, I guess a more accurate title for the book would be, “What If We Get It as Right as Possible?” Because I feel like so often the conversation is as if it’s binary, right, as if it’s either apocalypse or paradise when, of course, it’s anything in between. And the difference between getting it like 60 percent right and 80 percent right is huge in terms of our quality of life on this planet, the kinds of heat waves and storms and droughts and floods and fires and amount of sea level rise that we’re going to have to deal with. So, we’re talking about, you know, hundreds of millions of lives on the line if we veer much more on the apocalypse side than the paradise side. So, I would just say to people who are feeling like, where do we even begin? Like, is it worth it? Yes. Those increments are so big that they matter, even if they seem small, like a 10th or a half of a degree of warming that we can collectively prevent would be a very big improvement. And for the people who are like, technology is just going to fix this, like, well, when? You know, I mean, fusion energy would be really cool, but it’s not here yet. So, we do have to think about energy efficiency, and we do have to think about green buildings and insulation and public transit and all of these things that we can do. We have to think about composting and bike lanes and offshore wind energy and protecting and restoring ecosystems. Like, we could just start on all of that now. Essentially, in some ways, to buy us time until we have these other solutions.

SREENIVASAN: You know, you and your guests point out in several different ways in the book, how across party lines it is when it comes to the polling on whether or not people think climate change is real, whether they want to do something about it. And then there seems to be also a gap on whether they feel like they can do something.

JOHNSON: Yes. I mean, to be clear, there is a huge division in this country politically between the Democrats and Republicans on climate. I don’t want to sugarcoat that, right? We have one party who many will deny it exists and another party passing sweeping legislation to advance solutions. And the constituents, when you poll, there is definitely a difference between Republicans and Democrats. But interestingly still, the majority of people would like our government to do more to protect clean air and clean water, right? So, we don’t actually have to spend all of our time arguing about the details of climate change or even the origins of it, we can just agree to get to work on the solutions. People in Ohio and Texas are very excited that their states have the biggest amount of wind energy. Those are good jobs, right? It’s not just for hippies. It’s like a really financially viable market, renewable energy, right? And for young people, there is a ton of concern across party lines but much more than others might expect for young Republicans who are like, well, you’re setting our planet on fire. Can you please stop? Right? So, there’s this generational shift happening, which I think is really promising. And there’s also very significant differences across race in the country. It’s something like 47 percent of white Americans are concerned about climate change compared to 65 percent of black and Asian Americans, and 70 percent of Latinos. So, when we think about the typical environmentalist, we probably are thinking of a notion that’s not actually borne out by the demographics and the polling. And if we want to successfully build the biggest, strongest team to address the climate crisis, we need to think about welcoming everyone in who’s concerned and helping everyone find their role.

SREENIVASAN: So, when you start talking about race and demographics and how people of color are interested in solving this, how did you get interested in science? How did you get interested in specifically in the climate as you were growing up? Because most likely the climate science role models did not look like you.

JOHNSON: Well, first, I think it’s important to say on that issue of like the racial differences that it’s not because people of color are more impacted by the effects of climate change, although that is true. There is a grave injustice to the climate crisis that the people who did the least to cause it in terms of emissions are bearing the greatest brunt of the impacts. It is, in fact, because people of color tend to have a more communal worldview as opposed to individualist, right? This sense that we’re all in it together, and like we better figure out how to collectively address this crisis. So, I would just encourage us all to embrace more of that collective wisdom, collective action as the solution, as opposed to just making sure we, as individuals, get through this moment OK. And that, you know, sort of reflects on my career, as you asked. I mean, I found — fell in love with the ocean at a young age, as many people do, and then realized it was threatened and was like, oh, how do we save coral reefs? How do we protect coastal communities that depend on the ocean for their economies, their livelihoods, their cultures, right? My dad is from Jamaica. So, many people who live especially in the tropics are very heavily dependent on the ocean for food security, et cetera, their economies. So, I always — you know, when you love something, you want to help protect it. So, I encourage all of us to think about how to harness that love of nature as part of our inspiration. But then, you know, I quickly learned that it’s not just about snorkeling with colorful fish, it is this question of policy, economics, politics, sort of sociology, anthropology, even like behavioral psychology that you have to fit all these pieces together to think about solutions that would actually be practical. And so, my work has evolved to — I mean, I co-lead an ocean policy think tank because I think we need to change the policy frameworks for our coastal cities. So, Urban Ocean Lab is making recommendations for how to address a lot of these climate impacts in the place where one in five Americans live, which is our coastal cities.

SREENIVASAN: I mean, what you do really well and your guests do really well is talk about how kind of climate change is exacerbated by lots of other things that we don’t connect on a daily basis, right? I mean, fast fashion, for example, is an incredibly massive industry. And, you know, people are constantly looking for low prices, walking into some of these stores for practically disposable clothing. But there are these other much more significant costs with this entire infrastructure.

JOHNSON: Yes, I was just flipping to the page in the book. Each section opens with a list of 10 problems and 10 possibilities. I think it’s important to always put those two side by side. And the one on fashion is that Americans dispose of about 13 million tons of clothing and footwear each year, of which only 13 percent is recycled. The average fast fashion garment is worn only seven times before it’s discarded. And overall, the fashion industry is responsible for about 10 percent of global carbon emissions and 20 percent of industrial water pollution, and that is rising. So, as much as, you know, it’s an inconvenient truth, to borrow a phrase from Al Gore, I mean, a movie title I did not appreciate, truly, until writing this book, like we’re going to have to change some of the ways that we live on this planet, like Earth cannot support this level of consumerism and disposability based on fossil fuels.

SREENIVASAN: You know, something that caught my kind of eye a few times in this read was there’s almost like this sort of war of narratives, and people who have a lot of resources can try to push the blame on to the individual, maybe, away from governments or corporations.

JOHNSON: Yes. Yes, the follow the money section. One of the statistics that backs that up in detail is that the richest 10 percent of the population owned 76 percent of the wealth, takes 52 percent of the income and accounts for 48 percent of global carbon emissions. That’s the richest 10 percent accounting for 48 percent of emissions. And the poorest 50 percent of the world gets only 8.5 percent of the income and accounts for 12 percent of the emissions. And so, that’s the kind of discrepancy that we’re talking about here. And there’s, you know, a similar challenge with what the banks are doing. The top U.S. banks, since in the last decade, so we’re talking about JPMorganChase, City Bank, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, have provided about $1.5 trillion to fossil fuel companies to help them expand their operations, right? So, in a moment where we need to be investing in the transition to clean energy as quickly as possible, we’re seeing massive investments still in building out new fossil fuel infrastructure, which is totally ridiculous. And probably one of the most important things you can do at a household level is move where you have your money. So, if you have your money in one of those banks, you’re probably financing the fossil fuel industry to some degree. And there’s been research that shows by Bank Forward and others, if you have $125,000 saved up for retirement, and that money is not in a climate friendly fund, that money being loaned out to fund fossil fuel stuff is doing more harm than all the good you could possibly do to balance it out in terms of just eating plants, only walking and riding your bike, et cetera. So, if people are looking for a specific thing they can do, you know, it’s kind of a pain in the butt to spend a day researching it and filling out the forms to move your money, but that can make a big difference. And, you know, green energy companies are making a bunch of profit. They’re growing really quickly. So, that’s something I hope people would look into.

SREENIVASAN: And there’s a quote in your book from Angela Davis. It says, you have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time. How do people balance kind of that sense of urgency, especially when climate as a problem seems so daunting?

JOHNSON: And it’s something that we have to deal with for the rest of our lives, right? It’s not like we can all work really hard for a month and then it’s over. And so, what I encourage people to do is really think about how they specifically can be useful. So, I propose this framework of a climate action Venn diagram with three circles. And the first one is, what are you good at? You know, what are the skills, the resources, the networks that you specifically can bring to the table? The second circle is, what work needs doing, right? There are hundreds of climate and justice solutions. So, pick one or a few that you want to contribute your skills to. And then the third circle is, what brings you joy or satisfaction, gratification, right? This sense that you’re energized to keep doing this, because this something that we’re just going to have to keep chipping away at and making better and leaning into this sense of possibility and creation for as long as we can possibly be around to contribute. And being at the heart of this kind of Venn diagram, I think, is where everyone needs to find their way to. And of course, Hari, what you would do and what I would do should be different because we’re bringing different things to the table. So, I would encourage people to look beyond what they would think about in their personal life, right? Don’t just think about your own carbon footprint and your own money and your own family, think about what you can contribute within your professional life. How can you help the corporation you work for help to lead become something that’s contributing to climate solutions instead of a problem, right? How can you help your community, your city, your town start to make these shifts? And I think there’s just so much opportunity there for us to each roll up our sleeves and find ways to be useful. That’s the word I keep coming back to is like, we just all need to find ways to be useful.

SREENIVASAN: I’ve got to ask, how do you stay in the art of the possible? You have a quote in here that says, we find ourselves in a time of reckoning, at an inflection point for humanity. What we will inflect toward is not clear. I mean, what gives you confidence that we can get it right?

JACKSON: I don’t have confidence. I have no idea what the future may hold. And I actually think back to civil rights movement leaders, the phrase that’s been coming to mind a lot lately as I am out in the world talking about this book is Martin Luther King saying, I may not get there with you. And not because we may not ever see the results of our work because it may not be addressed thoroughly in our lifetimes doesn’t mean we should give up, right? Who are we to give up on life on this planet? That’s a ridiculous thing to do, to give up on each other, to give up on making the world better than it would otherwise be. And so, I kind of don’t worry about the end, the outcome, because even if – – even though I personally can’t solve climate change, I will feel better living as a person who is contributing to getting it as right as possible instead of just watching the world fall apart before my eyes.

SREENIVASAN: Professor Ayana Johnson, and author of the book, “What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures,” thanks so much for joining us.

JOHNSON: Thanks for having me.