A Prayer for the Modern Climate Era

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Practicality meets possibility in Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s new book, which dares to ask, “What If We Get It Right?”

Oct 2, 2024

On a recent family trip to Jamaica, I walked through the lush, humid forests of a Kingston suburb. The island was still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Beryl—the earliest Category 5 Atlantic hurricane in a century—and the pervasive effects of climate change were laid bare. Shattered storefronts dotted once-pristine main streets, and farmers living in rural towns lost acres of cropland.

Though a world away from my daily life as a climate communicator in Boston, I found myself returning to a pressing question: “Is it too late to address climate change?”

It’s a question that marine biologist and self-proclaimed “policy nerd” Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, with her own family connections to Jamaica, is intimately familiar with. In her latest book, What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures (One World Press, September 2024), Johnson offers an evocative exploration of possibility and transformation in the face of climate change. The collection of essays, interviews, poems, and art began as an attempt to spark conversation about climate solutions in popular culture, but it evolved into something much bigger: “This book is my response to anyone still wondering whether all of our climate efforts are worth it,” Johnson told me when we spoke on the phone in September as she was traveling for her book tour.

Johnson, who co-edited the bestselling 2021 anthology All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solution for the Climate Crisis, builds on her previous work to deliver a timely and urgent guide for envisioning and implementing climate solutions. The book is not just about understanding the problem (though Johnson and climate scientist Kate Marvel make clear “the atmosphere is fundamentally different now” due to human activities); it’s about contemplating—and in a way, manifesting—the various paths we as a society can take toward a livable future.

Find your people, whoever that might be, or bring your people. Don’t feel like you’re supposed to go it alone. This requires community.” —Brian Donahue

One of those paths must inevitably involve looking to nature for solutions. In a section of the book entitled “Replenish and Re-Green,” Johnson and others imagine a world where food systems are regional and regenerative, biodiversity is valued, and human stewardship of other species is the norm. Brian Donahue, a professor, farmer, and New Englander like myself, proposes a novel plan to revitalize rural America by growing more food closer to home and repopulating small towns.

As a Black woman with dreams of leaving urban life for a country homestead, I’ve often felt afraid of the conservative values that typically come with living in rural communities. But Donahue offers sage advice: “Find your people, whoever that might be, or bring your people. Don’t feel like you’re supposed to go it alone. This requires community.”

Community is a throughline of the book, and not just the human variety. Animals and insects, ecosystems, and various natural cycles are incredibly important for planetary health. But they remain enigmatic for most of us. Take, for example, the fact that even documenting the number of species on Earth is a never-ending effort. Yet Johnson writes that “the climate solutions that nature offers can comprise more than one-third of the CO2 mitigation needed to hold global warming to below 2 degrees C.” A crucial part of unlocking this potential for change is having greater respect for—and ceding decision-making power to—the naturalists, conservation scientists, and Indigenous communities already stewarding the natural world.

What if we had systems that loved us and, by extension, the planet?”

Just as the book homes in on specific solutions, it also zooms out, taking aim at the cultural values undergirding many of our modern systems. In an interview with author and activist Bill McKibben, Johnson draws connections between the capitalistic values of short-term growth and the funding of new fossil fuel development. The book lays bare the fact that money that companies and consumers have sitting in major banks produces more carbon than the average American does in a year.

According to McKibben, a reimagined financial ecosystem might rely more on credit unions and locally owned banks that keep money in a given community: “That should be happening as we start to rely more on renewable energy, because oil and gas are in Texas and Saudi Arabia and Russia, but happily, sun and wind are everywhere.”

Through the exploration of subjects from media and labor to transit and legal systems, Johnson and co-conspirators answer a deeper question about the climate crisis: What if we had systems that loved us and, by extension, the planet? In the section she calls “Away From the Brink,” Johnson sees these ideas to their rightful conclusion: Advertisements for fossil fuels and gas-powered cars would be an aberration. Climate change would be embedded in all local journalism, not viewed as a niche topic. We would evolve beyond the climate-apocalypse box office flick, and climate realities would become the backdrop of every genre of television and film. The influence of fossil fuels in politics would be reigned in, and our democratic system would become more representative. Exploitative labor practices would be abolished, and a livable wage would be commonplace. Seeing this vision laid out with striking specificity, it feels to me like it’s within our grasp.

Johnson admits that on the role of electoral politics in climate action, and the climate impacts of mega industries like fast fashion, the book is a bit light. These are two topics Johnson plans to cover in her new podcast debuting on her Substack in the fall of 2024. “This is such a useful question—what if we get it right?—that this book can’t fully answer,” she tells me frankly. “So I want to keep the conversation going.”

Whether you’re an activist, a parent, or simply curious about climate, you are likely to find pieces in this collection that appeal to you—and that’s intentional. The book does not argue for one-size-fits-all solutions. “Too often, the climate movement and the media tell everyone to do the same things: Vote, protest, donate, spread the word, and lower your carbon footprint,” Johnson writes. “But all too rarely are we asked to contribute our specific talents, our superpowers.”

For my part, I saw myself in the book’s Afrofuturist agricultural artwork by Olalekan Jeyifous. And reflecting on Marge Piercy’s poem “To Be of Use” inspired me to view my climate work, with its many ups and downs, as an exercise in perseverance. It encouraged me to recommit to incremental change and stay invested for the long haul.

We need to live as though we understand this crisis is real.” —Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

The variety of pieces in the book and the many forms they take serve as a reminder that everyone has a place in these climate futures and a hand in bringing them to life. Johnson’s climate action Venn diagram aims to pinpoint the intersection of what brings you joy, what you’re good at, and what work needs doing. That, she says, can be your place in the climate movement. For me, it’s probably something involving climate comedy, but the book overflows with inspiration and starting points for anyone struggling to picture a replenished world.

That’s not to say that this world is without sacrifice, though. In a concluding entry, Johnson and ocean farmer Bren Smith are clear-eyed about the necessary work and change ahead. “We’re going to have to say goodbye to some things we hold close to our heart,” Smith says, remarking on the many natural wonders we’ve already lost. Johnson adds, “We need to live as though we understand this crisis is real,” which means trying out a range of solutions and having a healthy relationship with failure.

A book of this kind, with its cautiously optimistic view on climate, might read as wishful thinking. To me, it is a prayer for the modern era: where practicality meets possibility.

Paige Curtis

is a third culture kid, writing at the intersection of environmentalism, Blackness, and pop culture. She covers climate tech, Black environmentalism, and uplifts the environmental ethics embedded in Caribbean livelihoods. Paige worked at mission-driven organizations and is currently in a communications role at the Boston Ujima Project. She can be reached at paigecurtis.me

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