An entirely credible (and entirely enchanting) voice... Ayana Johnson is no Pollyanna. She’s a hard-nosed and extremely competent scientist who has not shied for a minute from facing the hard truths. So if she thinks there remain ways we can use this crisis to build a better world, then rejoice, listen, and act!
– Bill McKibben
Journalist and activist, founder of Third Act
In What If We Get It Right?, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson invites her contributors and readers to look with clear eyes at the climate crisis and, instead of despairing, imagine a healthier planet and more just future, deploying optimism not as an anesthetizing balm, but as an electrifying challenge. Rigorous, elucidating, and hopeful in the most catalytic sense, this volume will stiffen your political will and open your mind and heart. It could arrive at no better moment.
– Rebecca Traister
Bestselling author and writer-at-large for New York magazine
Not many books on climate are hopeful. The solutions offered are rarely within anyone’s abilities. These 20 interviews with fascinating experts are a surprisingly quick read. Critically, What If We Get It Right? reminds us of the most important solution of all: protecting and restoring nature, the magic of photosynthesis and water cycle. If you need a kick in the pants to roll up your sleeves on climate solutions, this book is for you.
– Yvon Chouinard
Founder of Patagonia
If you are enamored with possibility, as I am, let the perspectives gathered in these pages fill you up and propel you on. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson has prepared a genuine feast for us. Savor every ‘what if’ for our shared future.
—Dr. Katharine K. Wilkinson
Co-editor of All We Can Save and lead writer of Drawdown
The climate crisis is terrifying, but also exhilarating—exhilarating because spectacular new ideas, approaches, and values are arising to address the terrifying stuff. That so many good people are so dedicated to doing what they can (and they can do and have done a lot) is the good news, and Ayana Elizabeth Johnson's fantastic new anthology lets you listen to dozens of them—organizers of course, but also farmers, filmmakers, landscape architects, literary geniuses, policy visionaries. The first thing you’ll get from these informal but inspired conversations is a reminder that if you care about climate, you’re not alone. The second through thousandth thing you’ll get are great ideas, perspectives, and analyses.
– Rebecca Solnit
Author, feminist, environmentalist
In What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures, the brilliant scientist and climate expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson asks an audacious question. What if we don't surrender to hopelessness and instead believe we can address climate change? With a thoughtfully curated series of essays, poetry, and conversations, Johnson has assembled a group of dynamic people who are willing to imagine what seems impossible, and articulate those visions with enthusiastic clarity. The problem of climate change is a significant one, but What If We Get It Right? reminds us that with passion and ingenuity, there is so much we can accomplish. We can, in fact, save ourselves.
– Roxane Gay
Bestselling author and social commentator
This is the book we’ve been waiting for—a brilliant mix of creativity and wisdom that feels like we’re eavesdropping on intimate conversations with the world’s most brilliant change-makers. In What If We Get It Right?, Ayana weaves together art, poetry, and expert interviews into a deeply human exploration of the interconnected challenges we face. The result is a vision of a future filled with joy and possibility, where fixing one problem helps us solve many more.
– Katharine Hayhoe
Climate scientist, author, and UN Champion of the Earth
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a singular, prophetic voice for this chrysalis of a century. And this book is not so much a call to action as a reframing of our ecological crisis as Calling - both personal and civilizational. This scientist knows the full dimensions of what we’re facing. But she would infuse our well- told narrative of catastrophe - which can become self-perpetuating - with a muscular hope and courage. I believe that this is a book that the young among us have been waiting for. It is certainly the reset that we as societies and as elders owe to coming generations of humanity — and to our magnificent natural world.
– Krista Tippett
Peabody Award-winning broadcaster, a National Humanities Medalist, and a New York Times bestselling author
When the dark consequences of climate change engulf our discourse, one of the lights I turn to is Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, who compellingly illuminates possibilities and potential for the future. With What If We Get It Right? Ayana is again injecting much needed creativity and joy into an issue that often feels dire, by reminding us that this is by necessity collective work, and if we do this right, we can shift culture and shape policy in ways that inspire each of us to find our role.
– Gina McCarthy
Former head of the Environmental Protection Agency–
Reading the smart, lively conversations in this book is like crashing a long-running dinner party: It’s a heady mix of sobering facts, hopeful visions, and illuminating footnotes (complex terms explained, juicy data unpacked, and charming asides). With her curatorial prowess on full display, Ayana punctuates what can be a dry, scary topic with leavening dollops of literary beauty and cultural richness, which is why she manages to break through and get people to really listen and participate in looking for and implementing solutions.
– Cyndi Stivers
director of curation at TED
With lucid and galvanizing energy and foresight, Ayana Johnson has created a guide to the anti-apocalypse. It is an act of bold courage and devotion to refuse the politics of annihilation, nihilism and numbness around the future of the planet, and by extension, humanity. WIWGIR asks us to find our climate purpose, and not give up on the future of ourselves.
– J Wortham
staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, co-editor of Black Futures
May we never forget the profound power in possibility. In the pages of What If We Get It Right?, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson ensures that we not only remember our power but that we follow the example of so many who are insisting on a better future for us all.
– Lisa P. Jackson
Former EPA Administrator, 2009-2013