Bowdoin College
09/19/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 09/19/2024 09:08
'What If We Get It Right?' Launching a Moment and Making a Media Splash
Johnson, Bowdoin's Roux Distinguished Scholar, is a marine biologist, policy expert, writer, and teacher working to help create the best possible climate future.
Her book, What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures, just released by Penguin Random House, is a compilation of essays and conversations that are infused with data, poetry, and art through which Johnson guides the reader through solutions and possibilities at the nexus of science, policy, culture, and justice.
The launch of the book and Johnson's passionate scholarship have brought the author into the headlines and pages of some of the biggest media platforms out there.
Vanity Fair covered the inaugural book launch event (there is a tour), which was a variety show at the Brooklyn Museum's Cantor Auditorium that Johnson co-emceed with actor Jason Sudeikis, most recently of Ted Lasso fame. Read the article, "Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson Is Saving the Planet, One Dance Step at a Time."
Johnson also spoke with Ari Shapiro, host of NPR's All Things Considered, about the book, the climate crisis, and why implementation is the sexiest word in the English language. Read or listen to the interview.
In a Los Angeles Times piece about how scientists are using social media to educate the masses, Johnson says, "To me, all of climate environmental education is about how we repeat each other's successes and avoid others' failures" and how that requires "getting in the weeds a little and, hopefully, in a way that's appealing and welcoming as opposed to like, boring and insufferable." Read the article, "Scientists Become a Source of Hope and Information on TikTok, Instagram."
Just days after that piece, the Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece by Johnson in which she shares the story of her mother's small homestead farm in upstate New York and how her mom grows her own food as an act of "pro-Earth patriotism." "Bring the seeds" is a phrase that occurs early in the book, and her opinion piece expands upon the importance of agriculture and how "some version of 'back to the land' has to be part of our climate solution." Read "Opinion: How Farming Can Turn Carbon from a Climate Threat into an Asset" in The Los Angeles Times and also picked up by AOL.
In late May, Johnson was the focus of a New York Times Sunday Magazine piece and subject of an episode of the New York Times podcast The Interview. Read or listen to the interview, "This Scientist Has an Antidote to Our Climate Delusions."
More press for Ayana Elizabeth Johnson's What If We Get It Right? here.