The Questions We Ask Matter with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
Update: 2024-12-05
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In this live episode of A Matter of Degrees, Dr. Katharine Wilkinson joined Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson for a conversation on Ayana’s new book, What If We Get It Right, Visions of Climate Futures.
The need to build community and the imperative to imagine the futures we want are now more important than ever. These topics are at the heart of this discussion, which took place before the election at the Carter Center in Atlanta.
This episode was also released on the What If We Get It Right? podcast.
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Transcript
00:00:00
This is a matter of degrees, stories for the climate curious.
00:00:06
I'm Dr.
00:00:06
Catherine Wilkinson.
00:00:08
It's just me today, bringing you a special episode, a live conversation I had a few weeks back, before the election, with my good friend and collaborator,
00:00:19
Dr.
00:00:20
Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson.
00:00:22
A lot has shifted since then.
00:00:26
I know folks are grieving, processing, preparing for what's ahead.
00:00:32
Me too.
00:00:35
One of the questions I'm holding in this moment is what is still true?
00:00:43
For me, the need to build community is a key answer.
00:00:49
Another is the imperative of imagining the futures we do want, even and especially when they see most out of reach.
00:01:00
And that's at the heart of this conversation with Ayanna.
00:01:03
She's a marine biologist, policy expert, writer.
00:01:07
We first met back in 2018 and connected pretty immediately around women's leadership on climate.
00:01:15
And shared passion led us to co-edit the All We Can Save Anthology, a collection of essays, poetry, and art, from 60 women who are leading the movement.
00:01:24
And it turned out that book wanted to be more than a book, because there is a leadership crisis at the heart of the climate crisis.
00:01:34
So Ayanna and I co-founded the All We Can Save project, the nonprofit I lead that is focused on nurturing the leadership we need for that future we want.
00:01:44
People, after all, are the beating heart of climate possibility.
00:01:50
Ayanna recently released a new book.
00:01:53
What if we get it right, visions of climate futures?
00:01:57
She and I sat down to talk about that book at the Carter Center in Atlanta.
00:02:02
The Carter Center holds a special place not just in my hometown, but in the environmental movement.
00:02:08
Now, a quick note on venue.
00:02:11
The Carter Center holds a special place not just in my hometown, but in the environmental movement.
00:02:17
It was founded by Jimmy and Rosalind Carter.
00:02:20
During his presidency, Carter protected more than 100 million acres of land in Alaska.
00:02:26
He created the Department of Energy, promoted renewables, even installed solar panels on the White House.
00:02:34
And he loved, quite famously, a warm cardigan in winter.
00:02:39
That center is both a monument and a continuation of President Carter's environmental and humanitarian legacy.
00:02:47
Climate action, before we even had a name for it, all of that made the Carter Center feel like the perfect place for Ayanna and me to discuss possibility,
00:02:57
transformation, courage, amidst the climate crisis.
00:03:02
And in the wake of the election results, it feels right to re-ground in the leadership of those who came before most of us in this work, who helped to forge paths where there were none.
00:03:15
President Carter's commitment to the human good, his gumption to keep at the work over decades, they feel to me like light.
00:03:26
And more light is certainly what we need in this moment and in the days ahead.
00:03:33
So with that, dear listeners, let's head a few weeks back in time.
00:03:37
Let's head to the Carter Center.
00:03:45
Let's get into it.
00:03:46
Okay.
00:03:47
I'll follow your lead.
00:03:49
Well, let's talk about your question, because I, one of my hypotheses is that the questions we hold about the climate crisis are often a really good compass for navigation of where we should go next.
00:04:04
And I actually haven't asked you when this question started to grow in you.
00:04:09
I don't know.
00:04:10
Is the short answer?
00:04:11
Like, the book was originally going to be called, "What do we become?"
00:04:15
How humans survive humanity, which apparently sounded ominous, and people wouldn't maybe buy it.
00:04:24
Which would have gotten us to quite well with one of the covers that we considered for all we can say with like dark clouds.
00:04:29
I thought it was a sunrise, other people were like, "It looks like soot and fire."
00:04:34
I'm like, "Very bad."
00:04:36
I mean, it was 2020, so, you know.
00:04:38
So that was the first title, which was also a question.
00:04:41
And then away from the brink, which we could, I'd considered, for my book, we considered briefly, for all we can save, that ended up being the title of the last chapter of this book.
00:04:53
That's just a phrase that I'm really enamored with, like, what would it look like to move away from this brink that we're on in terms of the climate crisis?
00:05:02
But again, I was sort of advised that it was still apocalyptic, just pretending to be backing away from the apocalypse.
00:05:12
But of course, the idea of this book is like, what do we want to work towards?
00:05:16
Where do we want to go?
00:05:17
Like, what is the future piece of this?
00:05:20
So yeah, I truly have no idea.
00:05:23
But once I came up with it, I was like, "Oh, yeah, that seems positive."
00:05:26
But also, there's a question mark, so it's not, "People assume that it's optimistic, but I'm not an optimist.
00:05:36
I hate to break it too.
00:05:38
I'm a realist, a scientist, all these other ists."
00:05:42
But like, we certainly could get it more right than we are now.
00:05:45
I guess, like, what if we get it as right as possible would be like the very accurate description of, like, my take in this book, also, not that catchy.
00:05:55
Anyway, titles are hard, titles are hard.
00:05:58
But questions are, there's an invitation, right, that's implicit in a question.
00:06:04
And I think that's the vibe of your work is, like, inviting people in, inviting participation.
00:06:12
And so I think it's really appropriate, actually, that it's a question.
00:06:16
I love to put that way, thank you.
00:06:19
Yeah.
00:06:20
But then the book itself is also full of questions, which I love.
00:06:24
I mean, I don't know if there's any kind of counts out there in the chat GPT land of, like, how many questions, but I feel like this book might be right up there, because it's lots of you asking questions to an extraordinary kind of smorgasbord of climate leaders and posing different versions of the what if question.
00:06:48
So I'm curious, like, what's your take on questions?
00:06:51
Like, what makes for good generative?
00:06:55
Well, I think questions.
00:06:58
First of all, I, like, much prefer being the interviewer, I mean, I love to hosting how to save a planet podcast, because it's just was so fun to get to ask these interesting people questions.
00:07:09
The reason that this book is its 20 interviews, essentially, because I came up with a title question and then was like, who am I to answer this question?
00:07:18
Not in, like, out of insecurity, but because, like, how could any one person answer a question this big about the future of life on this planet?
00:07:30
And so I think it's just, you know, some amount of humility made me realize that I either had to do this as, like, a dissertation style project where I read everything I could find all the different perspectives on it and then tried to do some sort of distillation,
00:07:49
crystallization of all of these other writings and then present it back to you in some sort of hopefully poetic ish prose.
00:08:00
And I thought, I don't want to write that book and probably I wouldn't even want to read it.
00:08:05
Yeah, it just felt like it was going to be a glorified textbook.
00:08:09
And then my editor saw me, he was coming to these events, Chris Jackson, from one world.
00:08:16
He was coming to these events.
00:08:17
I was hosting in Brooklyn at this arts institution called Pioneer Works, where I would interview, for example, Dr.
00:08:22
Kate Marvel, NASA climate scientist, and Rihanna Gunnwright, who is a lead author of the Green New Deal.
00:08:29
And just complimentary experts, right?
00:08:32
So an ocean farmer and an ocean fisherman or someone working on plastics, pollution reduction on a nonprofit side and on a scientific side.
00:08:42
And so it was, having all these conversations and my editor was like, oh, this is the book.
00:08:46
The thing that you can do, that special is like tell us who we should be listening to and then help us understand like what the heck they're saying.
00:08:53
Anyway, one thing led to another and, you know, 10 interviews became 20, just like our 20 essays for all we can save became like 40 until this was ripped out of my hands.
00:09:04
But I guess I'm just more comfortable asking questions than answering them and I was going to write an introduction to each section of the book and I really didn't want to do it.
00:09:15
So each section has like three interviews and maybe an essay by me and a poem or some quotes and stuff like that, similar in structure vaguely, generally, to all we can save.
00:09:26
And so I thought that the easiest way out would just be to frame the section through the questions that I thought captured the topics we were covering.
00:09:34
What if climate adaptation is beautiful?
00:09:37
What if we dream at a landscape scale?
00:09:40
What if we value culture as a form of resilience?
00:09:43
What if we deconstruct instead of demolish, right?
00:09:46
I thought there would just be much more provocative and engaging than like, and in this section we are going to talk about how climate adaptation could be beautiful.
00:09:54
Yeah.
00:09:55
Well, I think it really works.
00:09:58
Thanks.
00:09:59
No, I remember when we were working on the begin of all we can save.
00:10:06
And I was feeling similarly daunted by, you know, the summary that it's beginning should do.
00:10:12
It's so boring.
00:10:13
The introduction to every big book summarizes everything that's about to happen and all the chapters.
00:10:16
And I'm just like, why?
00:10:17
Yeah.
00:10:18
And I was like, surprise.
00:10:19
I wrote a prose poem.
00:10:20
Yes.
00:10:21
How do you feel about this?
00:10:22
No review.
00:10:24
So, you know, sometimes things you don't want to do, and that was the hack really good directions.
00:10:31
I'm so glad that you opened the conversation with this question about questions, because one of the things that I feel like is a gift that you have is the way that you see questions as,
00:10:42
or can create questions that are both generative and generous, I would say.
00:10:48
I mean, you want Catherine to ask you questions, because often there's like a compliment hidden in the question, and there's like room to play and explore, and it's not a leading question in a bad way.
00:11:01
And one of the things that I think has given all we can save, such a beautiful and long life as a book, I mean, this is like the four-year anniversary,
00:11:12
is the circles concept that you created.
00:11:16
So, this reading guide to guide people through all ten sections of the book with these generous questions, so I kind of want to ask the same question back to you, like, what is your relationship with questions,
00:11:26
and how have you seen that be effective for our first born?
00:11:30
Oh, see, she wants to be the interviewer.
00:11:34
I do, this is, you know, as our colleague Amy at the project always says, you know, give a mouse a cookie.
00:11:40
I mean, who doesn't want a cookie?
00:11:43
Here we are.
00:11:44
Yeah, I think I just really believe in the power of questions.
00:11:49
I think we're not always very thoughtful about the questions that we ask, and I think especially on a topic like the climate crisis that spans from soul to systems change and everything in between,
00:12:04
there's so much to interrogate, right?
00:12:07
There's so much to explore, and there's so much, there's just so much unknown territory, right?
00:12:13
I think in ourselves and the world around us and the landscape of solutions and accelerators for change and, you know, what the future will look like and who we need to be to live into the future that we want.
00:12:31
So I think maybe I should write the, what do we become book?
00:12:34
Yeah, yeah.
00:12:35
We should write it together.
00:12:36
Maybe we should do it together.
00:12:37
And we have another project.
00:12:38
Dun, dun, I cringe to say these things out loud because words become things with us.
00:12:44
I guess.
00:12:45
If there's a Google Doc, then you will know it is real.
00:12:51
And the circles, they all hold three generous questions that sort of follow Marshall Gans's story of self-story of us,
00:13:01
story of now.
00:13:02
So they kind of start close in, they move towards community and then kind of towards action in the world.
00:13:09
And what's amazing, I think, is that people really want to have that kind of dialogue, right?
00:13:15
But often we don't get the invitation or we don't get the structure for it.
00:13:19
And I think that's part of why circles kind of went and are still going.
00:13:24
I mean, there are circles that still are doing things together for years.
00:13:28
Absolutely.
00:13:29
Later, become like book clubs that are doing other climate, other reading other climate books together.
00:13:33
Yep.
00:13:34
Action, circles, apparently a group of 350 or so women in sustainability in Atlanta that grew out of a circle.
00:13:43
Wow.
00:13:44
Wow.
00:13:45
That's amazing.
00:13:46
Yeah.
00:13:47
I met two women at a book signing in Portland who met doing a, all we can say, circle together on Zoom while living in different countries.
00:13:58
It was someone who announced, I guess, through our Instagram that they wanted to hold us to circle or somehow we helped them find people to be in a circle with.
00:14:09
And they became best friends and they came to my book signing together and they're like, we're still doing this, we're doing this stuff.
00:14:16
And one of them made me a piece of art of a parrotfish, which is a fish that I really like.
00:14:21
You do like a parrotfish.
00:14:23
And the whole thing is just, I have to say, people who like, oh, we can save are the sweetest people, just a bunch of like mushy doogutters, it's the best, the best favorite genre of humans.
00:14:35
Yeah.
00:14:36
Oh, yeah.
00:14:37
But so one of the things this, I know I am going to talk in one of these compliments, I'm okay.
00:14:43
I'm girding myself.
00:14:44
That I really appreciate about this book and how you approached it as I think we are at like a species wide, massive learning moment, right?
00:14:55
Some sort of inflections, some sort of inflection, like I mean, my god, if we're not going to embrace the learning moment, you know, probably we're not going to maybe be a successful species.
00:15:06
But you really model, I think kind of how to take up the mantle of learning in this time and asking questions that you're like, holy shit, I'm actually not sure how to answer that.
00:15:18
And then going with curiosity and rigor and beginning to gather some answers and let them together.
00:15:26
So I'm curious if it felt like a learning journey.
00:15:29
Oh, totally.
00:15:30
Yeah.
00:15:31
Yeah, I mean, so there's 20 interviews in the book and everyone I interviewed was someone I had already known for years, if not a decade or more.
00:15:42
So there's like a real rapport there and I feel like I was able to have very different conversations because they weren't strangers.
00:15:50
There's a very different energy to the conversations in this book than if it's like a news interview.
00:15:55
I've heard, which really warms my heart, that it kind of feels like you're overhearing a dinner conversation, a dinner party conversation or something like that of like friends trying to grapple with things together maybe over some wine and just,
00:16:09
you know, getting a little salty and spicy with the whole thing.
00:16:14
And so it was really a lot of fun.
00:16:16
And of course, they're highly edited.
00:16:18
So you know, I'd have like a 50 page transcript that I'd cut down to like 15 pages.
00:16:22
Thank you.
00:16:23
You're welcome.
00:16:24
I mean, it's so thick already.
00:16:28
But yeah, so this was in large part in editing project in a way, like what is the essence of each of these things?
00:16:36
And arguing with my editor over like which jokes I was allowed to keep pieceies like this is not too much.
00:16:41
Too many.
00:16:42
Too many.
00:16:43
Too many.
00:16:44
Big to differ.
00:16:45
This is hilarious.
00:16:46
I think I've absolutely lost track of your question.
00:16:53
I think Journey.
00:16:54
Oh, yeah.
00:16:55
Such a journey.
00:16:56
So I think, I mean, I did these interviews over the course of maybe six months.
00:17:02
And so it was really interesting having that be a longer process.
00:17:06
Basically, I wrote the book in nine months and then edited it in nine months and then plan the tour for a few months.
00:17:13
I feel like any good learning journey has moments where you're like, whoa, this is a little, I'm like at an edge that I didn't really necessarily want to come to.
00:17:23
Yeah.
00:17:24
Did you have those in the process?
00:17:28
The chapter on artificial intelligence.
00:17:31
I'm just not into it.
00:17:33
Like I wish we could uninvent it, honestly, but like that's not going to happen.
00:17:37
And so to be a person who's like, can we just put this cat back in the bag, please?
00:17:43
But also I know that that's not possible.
00:17:48
And so really trying to come to grips with, okay, like if this is a thing that's going to be around what's the best possible scenario for it was, yeah,
00:17:58
definitely an edge for me.
00:18:00
And so the person I interviewed about that was Mustafa Suleiman, who was the co-founder of Deep Mind, one of the first big AI companies that sold to Google and then he worked at Google as their head of AI policy and products or something like that for a while.
00:18:16
And now he's head of AI at Microsoft.
00:18:19
And he used to be like a facilitator and is good friends with Al Gore, because he helped with climate negotiations.
00:18:26
So he kind of understands my world and I was trying to understand his and I was just like what?
00:18:33
And honestly, I took like a little bit of editor's prerogative.
00:18:36
I'm like, it would take so many footnotes to explain this, that we're just going to cut it.
00:18:42
Because you have to cut, you know, 60% of the interview anyway.
00:18:46
And so the stuff on like, like how AI is going to help with agriculture and like genetic engineering and stuff.
00:18:53
I was like, yeah, we're not going to cover that in this book.
00:18:56
Customer and floor.
00:18:58
Yeah.
00:18:59
Yeah.
00:19:00
Who was the wonkiest person you interviewed?
00:19:03
Kelly Sims Gallagher is pretty wonky.
00:19:05
She does international climate policy.
00:19:08
So in the 90s, when she was looking at the data coming out of China, she was like, oh, China is going to be the big deal in the future of greenhouse gas emissions.
00:19:17
I'm going to move to China and learn Chinese and like, we're going to figure this out, which right to see the writing on the wall and then take a leap like that.
00:19:25
I will just forever be in awe of her.
00:19:29
She ended up in the White House in the Obama administration, helping to broker that first US China deal on climate where each country made their own commitments to what they were going to do on emissions and setting a goal for that.
00:19:45
And that unlocked the Paris Agreement, which was based on these nationally determined contributions where every country just decided what they were going to commit to.
00:19:54
And then all the countries made their separate commitments.
00:19:59
And then that became essentially the Paris Agreement.
00:20:02
Very wonky, but also absolutely critical and just learning from her, the importance of monitoring and making sure that less wealthy countries have the capacity to understand as are their policies working because they're down for it.
00:20:18
But if you don't have the capacity to measure the impacts of the policies that you're investing so much in implementing, especially with scarce resources,
00:20:29
you can't afford to not check how well it's going and making sure you're investing in just the right ways and not missing like a major source of emissions, etc.
00:20:39
So yeah, that one's, it's wonky international policy stuff, but also very practical.
00:20:44
And, you know, I asked follow up questions, so anyone who's interested can certainly follow it.
00:20:50
But yeah, in the glorious weeds of it all, which conversation left you feeling the most inspired lit up?
00:21:00
I know you told me you were maybe going to ask about, like, which one was the most woo-woo?
00:21:04
Is this the new version of that question?
00:21:05
Yeah.
00:21:06
It's a slightly different version.
00:21:07
But I think we want to answer the woo question.
00:21:08
Because I think it's related, which is odd for me because I'm usually like, "Oh, with the woo, that's too much."
00:21:14
Too much woo.
00:21:15
Okay.
00:21:16
Yeah.
00:21:17
Like, crystals are pretty, but what are we doing here?
00:21:20
It was actually Brent Smith, this like super salty former commercial fisherman who worked, you know, out in the grand banks,
00:21:30
out in Alaska, was basically part of overfishing and watched the fisheries he grew up in, collapsing.
00:21:40
And was like, "I don't want to do that.
00:21:43
I don't want to be on that side of history, but I do want to make a living on the water.
00:21:48
I cannot be a cubicle kind of guy."
00:21:52
And so he realized that he could farm the ocean.
00:21:55
And so he's become one of the pioneers of what he calls regenerative ocean farming, of seaweed and oysters and scallops and mussels and clams, all that kind of good stuff.
00:22:07
And co-founded an organization called Green Wave that is training thousands of people how to do this and helping to create the markets for that seaweed and helping to,
00:22:18
you know, encourage the policy development, which is something my team at Urban Ocean Lab, this policy thing tank that I co-founded has been working on too, right?
00:22:27
The thing that I found inspiring about that conversation was how he describes the potential for regenerative ocean farming to revitalize the waterfronts of places that have been really hollowed out by the collapse of fisheries to have this new coastal economy that's built more on a co-op model,
00:22:46
where people are really sharing in the benefits as this grows, where there's not this huge corporate consolidation, where it's many small farms dotting the coast instead of these massive conglomerates,
00:23:00
and where it's not just all of the coastlines becoming extremely expensive condos and privatized just preserving this culture of making living from the ocean.
00:23:13
And I found that to be a really exciting vision.
00:23:18
And at the same time, I had never heard Bren talk about his feelings before this interview.
00:23:26
And part of that is because he has a daughter now, and he was really thinking about her future and the future in a different way.
00:23:34
He said, "I'm trying to foster my tolerance for ambiguity, the unknown, living with the hope of a better future.
00:23:40
We got to enjoy this journey, because part of not knowing where it's going to go is that every day we need solidarity, and we need love for each other, and we need to laugh and have joy,
00:23:51
and that's not normally the way I speak.
00:23:53
And I wouldn't have spoken that way years ago, to which I responded, "No, you're salty.
00:23:59
I've never heard you talk about feelings before."
00:24:02
And he said, "Climate has changed me a little.
00:24:05
The way I feel about the world and want to interact with folks, like the toxicity we see in our culture, folks attacking each other and trying to tear each other down, that's not how I want to die.
00:24:16
Let's live and die without regret."
00:24:20
And I was just like, "Hey, men, sign me up for that, right?
00:24:25
Totally."
00:24:26
And the other thing he said about feelings, which, again, like, not the inner rethought you're going to have.
00:24:34
No.
00:24:35
He said, "Speaking from the culture I grew up in, we're going to have to say goodbye to some things we hold close to our heart.
00:24:43
For me, that's chasing fish, being on the high seas, that search and the hunt is hard for me to say goodbye to, but it is what I have to give up to make a better world for my kid.
00:24:54
I suspect everybody on the planet is going to have their own version of something like that.
00:24:59
It's cultural things we're going to have to give up, and those are the most painful.
00:25:03
We need to look in and admit to ourselves that we are climate deniers and ask ourselves, what do I need to change?"
00:25:14
And I was just like, "Oh, yes, exactly that."
00:25:18
And then he goes on to talk about working-class environmentalism and how we've totally written it off and let it be this elitist thing, and he's like, "No, it's not about left-wing and progressives and the cultural left.
00:25:31
It's real, and it's been there for generations, and we need to honor it and bring it to the center."
00:25:35
And so this very clear vision of what if we get it right for the future of working waterfronts and coastal economies, and one that's grounded in blue collar environmentalism,
00:25:49
and also in love for the future, I was just like, "That's the inspiration and the woo-woo at the same time."
00:25:58
It's got the implementation and the heart, exactly.
00:26:01
And the strategy, like he's actually working on making that dream real.
00:26:06
When I feel like there's, you know, there's become this guy's stuff like, "Don't tell people they're going to have to give anything up."
00:26:12
Uh-huh.
00:26:13
Right?
00:26:14
And it's like, "Okay, come on."
00:26:17
Like, how many people just gave up their homes?
00:26:20
Like, that's not the kind of giving up you want to have to do, but like, this idea of we will just somehow swap some things out and continue as is feels, it just feels like lying to people,
00:26:33
you know?
00:26:34
And I think Brent's provocation of like, "What is it that we need to give up that like, we love and we don't want to give up, but when we see the big picture,
00:26:46
we understand the necessity of it."
00:26:50
And the way that he describes it in particular as cultural, I think is very real, right?
00:26:55
We think about the houses we live in, the cars we drive, and how much energy we use, and all of that stuff, and the types of transportation that we use, and what we eat, and all of that, like the southern barbecue,
00:27:07
the like, "It's huge piles of red meat as like the cultural norm."
00:27:15
I mean, you're talking to someone who's survived in the South as a vegetarian for 25 years, so like, "I know."
00:27:19
And all of this kind of stuff, right?
00:27:25
Yeah.
00:27:26
It's just, we're just like gripping onto it even tighter.
00:27:30
I think because people know in their hearts that it's unsustainable.
00:27:35
And so I think this is, to me, like, one of the biggest questions is how, whether and how our culture will adapt to the fact that our climate has changed,
00:27:48
because if we're not dealing with that part of it, then we're not going to be able to move fast enough if culture is holding us in the past.
00:27:58
And I think that it was actually reading your drawdown review that in some sense, like, crystallize that for me, because you described culture as an accelerant or accelerator of our ability to implement climate solutions.
00:28:14
And it just feels like if politicians are wussy and actually followers and not leaders, which they mostly are.
00:28:22
So if they're trying to do the thing that will get them re-elected and not piss off too many lobbyists and donors,
00:28:34
we need to change the cultural context within which they're making those decisions.
00:28:40
And so that's why I've been doing this book tour and having the types of conversations and events that I have is because, like, this needs to be placed within the cultural context.
00:28:52
Totally.
00:28:53
So thank you for helping me notice that very clearly.
00:28:57
Well, and thank you, Dinele Meadows, because her understanding of leverage points in complex systems helped me.
00:29:09
And she mostly talks about paradigms, but really culture is the holder of paradigms, right?
00:29:13
Culture is the holder of our mindsets, our values, our beliefs that really do set the context for, yeah, for everything else.
00:29:23
And it's where, you know, I think we found so much, like, just immediate, kindred connection when we met, which was communication about climate,
00:29:34
storytelling about climate is not like a nice-to-have thing.
00:29:37
Like, that is the most powerful vehicle for cultural change.
00:29:43
So, you know, books, books matter.
00:29:46
Oh, books still matter.
00:29:48
They still matter.
00:29:49
Excellent news.
00:29:50
Yeah.
00:29:51
Yeah.
00:29:52
I think it's good.
00:29:53
There's a section in this book called Culture is the Context.
00:29:56
Actually, what are the, what if questions in that one, that might be a couple of those?
00:30:02
What if new storytelling matches our new reality?
00:30:05
What if films acknowledge climate as the context?
00:30:07
What if the news is 50 percent climate instead of 1 percent, which it currently is 0.9 percent?
00:30:13
Of TV news minutes.
00:30:15
What if journalists focus on solutions?
00:30:18
What if disposability is out and durability and repair is in?
00:30:23
What if we collaborate across generations?
00:30:26
What if we view climate action as a moral imperative?
00:30:29
I started by interviewing to Hollywood executives and being like, "Where are the stories?"
00:30:35
You guys?
00:30:36
Yeah.
00:30:37
We don't need more depressing documentaries.
00:30:38
We need like the meat-cute rom-com at the composting facility.
00:30:43
And we need the whole love blossom.
00:30:46
Extremely hot solar installer instead of like, the pool boy is so 80's like, "Give me the hot solar spanner."
00:30:54
A key pump?
00:30:55
[laughter]
00:30:56
Well, yes.
00:30:57
Maybe this is the next grab talk to a radio.
00:30:58
I'm so happy to see you.
00:30:59
Oh, my God.
00:31:00
Can we write a rom-com together?
00:31:01
Oh, for the love.
00:31:02
Yeah.
00:31:03
I'm so happy to see you.
00:31:04
I'm like, "God, can we write a rom-com together for the love of God?"
00:31:11
This is what we need, right?
00:31:12
How many sort of like couples have spats at the EV charging station because your goddamn husband didn't charge it before your road trip, you know?
00:31:22
Like, all of this is just, these are normal parts of life now.
00:31:26
Yeah.
00:31:27
Like, I've definitely checked people out in the bike lane at a red light.
00:31:30
Why is this not in a movie, right?
00:31:34
Yeah.
00:31:35
And so I just feel like what I want to see is storytelling that reflects our new reality and has a sense of humor about it while focusing on solutions.
00:31:46
Let's talk about joy.
00:31:47
Okay.
00:31:48
Because, you know, rom-com is one of the things you bring to this particular climate party, which is not really known for its joy vibes.
00:31:57
Talk to us about joy.
00:31:58
Tell us what was especially joyful in this project.
00:32:03
We described it as like the climate party and when I talk to high school kids and they're so earnest about their environmental clubs and I just adore them and they're like, "Why aren't more people joining my club?"
00:32:14
I'm like, "I don't know.
00:32:16
Are your meetings any fun?"
00:32:18
Like, "You have to throw a better party or no one's going to come."
00:32:22
Like, literally, you have to throw the better party.
00:32:25
In all we can say, we use the word "invitation."
00:32:28
Like if you've been waiting for an invitation, like, please consider this to be it.
00:32:33
The first word in the introduction of this book is welcome because I really wanted this to be like a "common in we need you" kind of energy.
00:32:45
And so if you're going to invite people in, like, you're going to have to be a good host, right?
00:32:51
That's why there's one autobiographical chapter in the book.
00:32:54
Because I'm like, "Okay, if I'm your host, like, I should give you a little bit of something about like my biases and how I'm approaching this."
00:33:01
That's why there's art in the book, right?
00:33:04
That's why the inside of the back cover is my anti-apocalypse mix tape, which I spent like 80 hours probably on that knowing you that sounds right.
00:33:15
I completely had to get all the right songs and exactly the right order of the arc of all the emotions.
00:33:21
I described it as "Anthoms for Victory, Love Songs to Earth, Toons for Tenacity, and Sex-y Implementation Vibes."
00:33:33
That's everything you basically need to know about.
00:33:36
My approach to climate work, like, implementation is the sexiest thing, like show me a practical problem solver, and I spoon, but we don't actually have climate anthems,
00:33:49
really.
00:33:50
This is so different from the civil rights movement, right?
00:33:53
Like, I've been thinking a lot about the legacy of the civil rights movement and the joy and solidarity that comes from having such a deep cultural and religious foundation.
00:34:05
Yeah.
00:34:06
We just don't have that.
00:34:08
Like, climate marches are often very silent because we don't have the songs, and you get tired of being like, "What do we want, climate justice, when we want it now?"
00:34:18
Now.
00:34:19
Now.
00:34:20
And believe me, I do want it now, but it's not very melodic, you know?
00:34:25
And so I basically had to appropriate, like, repurpose Love Songs to be as if they were about loving this planet.
00:34:33
I don't know, I had a lot of fun with that, but I became the art director for the book.
00:34:37
I stepped in and like, did the layouts, because it really matters to me how we present information.
00:34:44
Yeah.
00:34:45
So, after these blue double spread pages, there's these lists of ten problems and ten possibilities for each section, the minuses and the pluses, because I very firmly believe that it's irresponsible to talk about the problems without,
00:34:58
right, in the same breath, talking about the solutions, like where we can go from here.
00:35:05
There's so much we can do to make it better that it just feels irresponsible not to talk about that.
00:35:12
Yeah.
00:35:13
I mean, I've been thinking about, I've been thinking about it a lot this week and thinking about, you know, in Georgia, we, in the last two years, would become the number one state for clean energy jobs and investment.
00:35:28
So we have this, like, possibility growing on the one side and then, you know, these unprecedented storms ripping through.
00:35:37
And so this, like, peril on one side, possibility, right?
00:35:40
And, like, the capacity to stay active and engaged and imagining, like, in that gap,
00:35:51
right?
00:35:51
In this, like, pinch that we're in between those two things that are, like, so true at the same, at the same time.
00:35:58
Yeah.
00:35:59
And I think so often the climate conversation is framed as that polarity, as apocalypse or we solve climate change and we can't solve it.
00:36:13
Like, it's already changed, we'll continue to change.
00:36:15
We're still emitting more greenhouse gases a year.
00:36:19
And so that's the context, right?
00:36:21
But there's any number of possible futures.
00:36:25
And I actually find it really liberating that there's not just like one thing that we either get it right or we don't.
00:36:32
It's not like, there's a moment when we get to stop trying because it's over.
00:36:37
It's just every day, like, how can I make this better than it would otherwise have been?
00:36:41
Which I think helps, certainly helps me keep going because you realize you're just one person.
00:36:46
You can't actually, like, you're not a savior.
00:36:50
The problem is too big.
00:36:51
I've been really thinking about, I know you will relate to this.
00:36:54
I've been thinking about climate change as like the biggest group project.
00:37:00
And as, like, two-dorky kids, like, a group project, way too much weight in group projects in grade school, like, you can carry a group project when it's like three-eighth graders.
00:37:11
You cannot carry a group project when it is the future of life on earth.
00:37:16
And so that's why it's all about the invitation and the welcome and the, like, come in.
00:37:21
We need you.
00:37:22
Please find your role in this.
00:37:25
Thank you.
00:37:29
What?
00:37:30
A treat.
00:37:31
Thank you.
00:37:32
Dr.
00:37:32
Catherine K.
00:37:33
Wilkinson.
00:37:34
Thank you.
00:37:35
Hi, Anna.
00:37:36
Elizabeth Johnson.
00:37:37
Thank you for coming to Atlanta on "Mess Choir."
00:37:40
I wouldn't miss it on this tour.
00:37:46
A matter of degrees is co-hosted by me, Dr.
00:37:49
Leah Stokes, and me, Dr.
00:37:51
Catherine Wilkinson.
00:37:53
We are a production made in partnership with Frequency Media, the 2035 initiative at UC Santa Barbara, and the All We Can Save project.
00:38:01
Thanks to our funders and supporters who make this show possible.
00:38:05
Including the 11th Hour project.
00:38:08
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00:38:16
Find out more at MakeP polluterspay.net.
00:38:19
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00:38:27
Scriptwriting, fact-checking, communication and production support are by Lucas Boyd, Alex Delayo, Gwen Lewis, Kristen Palmstrom, and Anucia Singh.
00:38:36
At Frequency Media, Michelle Cory is our executive producer.
00:38:40
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00:38:46
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00:38:53
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00:39:00
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00:39:03
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00:39:06
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