What if We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures

Book review

What if We Get it Right?: Visions of Climate Futures by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

Review by Julia Bassett Schwerin

WHILE THE TOPIC of the climate crisis can be a heavy one, this collection edited by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson takes a more hopeful approach, positing “What if we get it right?”

Through this browsable book, Dr. Johnson, a marine biologist and policy expert serving as Roux Distinguished Scholar at Bowdoin College, invites us to come together to envision solutions. A Publishers Weekly review described What If We Get It Right? as “a much-needed antidote to ‘climate grief.’”

The collection opens with quote from E. O. Wilson’s 1984 book Biophilia—a term for the simultaneously calming, invigorating and nurturing feeling of being connected to nature: “Our existence depends on this propensity, our spirit is woven from it, hope rises on its currents.”

From there, dozens of essays, interviews and poems from an eclectic mix of writers and thinkers cover topics of policy, culture, finance, housing and the back-to-the-earth movement.

To begin a chapter titled “If We Build It…?” Dr. Johnson asks, “What if all infrastructure is climate-smart?” Buildings make up a third of both global and U.S. carbon emissions. To reduce that, Johnson says, we need to design buildings that have low embodied energy, provide operating energy efficiency, and adopt resiliency to local environmental hazards such as storms, flooding, heat, wind and fire.

Other recommended sections include: “Seeds and Sovereignty,” an interview with Lean Perriman that aligns with Maine nonprofit Wild Seed Project’s mission to repopulate landscapes with native plants; “Divest and Protest,” an interview with venerable climate activist, author and academic Bill McKibben; and “I Dream of Climate RomComs,” an interview with Adam McKay and Franklin Leonard about their quest for a more effective climate film narrative than a sobering documentary.

Perhaps you’re interested in maximizing reuse of building materials through deconstruction rather than demolition. Or you want to join the circular economy. Or you want to restore natural storm buffers and inland flood plains. Whatever angle you come at climate resiliency, Dr. Johnson’s latest book will uplift and inspire. It’s such a wealth of positive thought that I’ve found new revelations at every rereading.