Our climate future is not yet written. What if we act as if we love the future?
Sometimes the bravest thing we can do while facing an existential crisis is imagine life on the other side. This provocative and joyous book maps an inspiring landscape of possible climate futures.
Through clear-eyed essays and vibrant conversations, infused with data, poetry, and art, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson guides us through solutions and possibilities at the nexus of science, policy, culture, and justice. Visionary farmers and financers, architects and advocates help us conjure a flourishing future, one worth the effort it will take—from all of us, with whatever we have to offer—to create.
If you haven’t yet been able to picture a transformed and replenished world—or see yourself, your loved ones, and your community in it� this book is for you. If you haven’t yet found your role in shaping this new world, or you’re not sure how we can actually get there, this book is for you.
With grace, humor, and humanity, Ayana invites readers to ask and answer this ultimate question, What if we get it right?
On imagination, possibility, and transformation with
This book is A+. It has inspired climate activism in me. The form is brilliant. Dr. Johnson makes you fall in love with her passion and outlook. This is such a fantastic holistic way to see climate and our responsibilities. Yes.
My sweetheart recommended this book to me during our second date and gave me a copy to read. By the time I finished reading the prelude and the introduction I had fallen in love. With the book. And with the person who shared it with me; and with the possibilities it shows are achievable if we get it right.
It’s rare to find such a wonderful mix of practicality, imagination, wonky insight, inquisitiveness, light-heartedness, joy and keen style in one book. Reading it was deeply enjoyable. It left me convinced that the future could be an incredible place to live, and it gave me a sense of the lengthy to-do list that humanity (you & me & everyone) needs to work through if we’re going to ward off apocalypse and build the world we want.
There’s even a playlist to rock out to while we work!
Obviously an important topic, but the quality of the interviews included varies quite a bit. While a few stand out in good and bad ways—the AI one was borderline idiotic—most have the vibe of unremarkable TED talks or random podcast episodes. Which isn’t to say that the interview subjects aren’t doing important work nor should we ignore their fields of study and activism. It’s more an issue of curation and the structure/editing of the book. Still worth reading for the broad scope and range of perspectives included. I wouldn’t say it gave me hope, but the passion and dedication of these folks was inspiring.
Another book of climate optimism and focus on solutions. If you're looking for a way to re-wire your brain and take real action to resolve this extremely complicated issue that requires pressuring policy makers and fossil fuel companies and essentially the war machine to end business as usual, this is one of the books to keep in your burn-out & recruitment self-care toolbox.
This is an invaluable contribution to climate activism. Though, as Johnson points out, it's more important to DO something about the crisis than to merely communicate about it, this immense effort to communicate about so many different elements of the fight provides the reader with an incredible blueprint for getting involved. Some chapters will only be relevant to a small number of people (like the one about wealth management for ultra-rich families), but they are clearly included for that important niche audience, and are still interesting to read about. Most, though, are much more broadly applicable, especially information about pushes for banks and other financial institutions to divest, and various ways to make farming more sustainable (which people can contribute to, depending on their circumstances, in limited but meaningful ways).
The book is structured primarily around interviews with activists, scientists, economists, and other figures, which makes it very readable and digestible; it's easy to dip in and out. Crucially, too, though Johnson does not hesitate to acknowledge the enormity of the problem, she focuses on solutions. I often find myself avoiding reading in-depth climate stories because I know they will send me into a spiral of anxiety, and this book accomplishes the task of informing its readers about the challenges but also making you want to contribute to the solution.
If I could make everyone in the world buy one book right now � if I could magically deliver it to everyone like Oprah � it would be this one.
This book means so much to me. It made me cry almost every time I picked it up. Not even sad tears, but tears over how beautiful humanity and our planet is and tears of joy and love. It made me reevaluate my life and my role in climate justice. The book is a collection of poems and interviews with various people in the climate world, from journalists to organizers to scientists. It is organized into different topics within the climate crisis with problems and possibilities framing each section. It is not an out-of-touch book about “hoping for the best� but it’s a love letter to our people, planet, and future.
Everyone needs to read this book (or at least some chapters)!! Here are my favorite chapters in (rough) favorite order: - Building Indigenous Power (Jade Begay) - Seeds and Sovereignty (Leah Penniman) - Diasporas and Home (Colette Pichon Battle) - First, Nature (Judith D. Schwartz) - Kids These Days (Xiye Bastida and Ayisha Siddiqa) - Divest and Protest (Bill McKibben) - Neighborhoods and Landscape (Bryan C. Lee Jr. and Kate Orff) - A Blue New Deal - A Green New Deal (Rhiana Gunn-Wright) - Climate Oath - A Note on Hope
I also highly recommend the audiobook. Ayana recorded all of the interviews, which makes the reading/listening experience more powerful, intimate, and engaging.
This is an incredibly important read, and one that is not only palatable to someone who usually avoids this topic due to anxiety, but hopeful and affirming. Not giving the full five stars but only because this is more of a collection of podcast episodes than a book with an overarching narrative.
4.5 Everyone should read this. There’s something in it for everyone. While i kinda slogged/zoned out through some of the more policy and economics oriented parts, i still found the overall effect to be impactful and enlightening, and there were other parts that were more engaging for the kind of reader and person that i am. I highly recommend the audiobook, as it is basically a long-form podcast!
Great content, many many perspectives, made me feel excited to do more. Beautiful quotes and ideas.
Only reason it's not five stars is because I had trouble with the format. I think the interviews could have been edited down into essays that would have retained the voice but been more concise to read. I had to put it down a few times because of the format.
This is one of the most important books I have ever read and I can’t stop talking about it. Before reading it I never thought of myself as a climate warrior type, though I cared, but now I see that truly every societal problem is connected to the climate and climate solutions. There is no way humanity can be happy while our world dies. Just being aware of the powerful minds at work on this problem has led me to unconsciously make different lifestyle choices because I feel icky getting in the way of the beautiful solutions that are already kicked off.
I want to give this book a thousand stars. Great if you’re just starting in the climate/sustainability world, and still great if you’ve been here for a while. I love the intersection of all industries, and the positive tone was needed and appreciated- especially now. I feel re-energized and inspired!!
10+ stars. I listened to the audiobook and it’s like listening to individual podcasts with the expert/activists that are prominent in different parts of the fight. It’s organized by larger categories and poetry and the author’s comments sprinkled in. Love that there’s a lot of hope even though progress and politics at times can be discouraging.
This book reminded me that there are so many ways that we can do the work to protect the planet. We need farmers, scientists, storytellers, lawyers, policymakers, comedians, activists, and so much more. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson interviewed experts in all of these areas.
It’s just so cool to listen to people who know SO MUCH in their field. My favorite interview was with Jigar Shah who was the director of the Loan Programs Office in the US Department of Energy from March 2021 to January 2025. I just loved his optimism that eventually there will be a political moment where everyone will be all-in� and how his job was to make sure we have the technology to meet the moment. It was so inspiring to me!!
I think this book will have something for everyone and help folks to see that we all have unique talents and skills that can help us “get it right�
A note on format: this book is primarily a collection of interviews. The audiobook is a recording of the interviews that (I think) are lightly edited. The print book is essentially a collection of transcripts of these interviews but the transcripts are sometimes significantly edited to shorten or for clarity. Because of this, some chapters the print and audio are pretty different. Especially the See You In Court chapter, about half of the interview is cut in the print book. There may be others but that was one that I noticed. This was really the only downside of this book for me. I think it’s an accessibility issue when the print and audio do not match. I hope this doesn’t deter you from reading with your eyeballs or ears—but wanted to mention it!
I placed a hold on this book back in September when I thought we were about to elect our first female president who would continue and expand upon climate change initiatives set forth over the past four years. I was wrong. It finally came available in a week when instead the US withdrew from the Paris agreement and rolled back the majority of the (small) advancements that have been made. Part of me wanted to bury my head in the sand and just. Not read it. But part of Johnson's point in this book is that we can't afford to, but we can afford to adopt a solutions oriented, future driven approach to thinking about climate change rather than catastrophe porn. I must admit when I first started I remember feeling a bit cheated thinking this book was going to be carefully synthesized and instead seeing blocks of interview text transcribed by AI powered transcription software. I remember thinking "... why didn't she just make it a podcast?" But over time I began to see the value in showcasing the direct words of her interviewed sources, as their language captures their passion well. Plus, as to the why not a podcast, the footnotes added a great deal of value that I would have missed had it been an audio format.
I also really appreciated the way this book handled intersectionality of this issue. I saw more than normal how much identity shapes the way people view and experience climate change, and also the ways it inspires them to address it. And the unjust ways in which it will more drastically affect certain groups
Phenomenal. If you, like me, find yourself feeling hopeless or anxious about the state of the world in regard to climate and the way we treat the earth, this book is well-worth reading. It left me feeling reinvigorated and did bring me to tears of hope and inspiration a few times.
HIGHLY recommend the audio format which uses audio from the actual interviews that each chapter is based on, so it feels like a series of podcast episodes interviewing each specialist interspersed with poetry and lists of facts and data.
Remarkable collection of interviews from the brilliant climate expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. Johnson interviews experts across all fields and reframes the climate crisis by focusing on what we already know, what’s possible and how can we get it right. If you are feeling overwhelmed by the newest administration, I suggest spending time with this one. Highly recommend the audio (a mere 22 hours) but digestible!
Really great, interesting, informative book which really inspires action. Struggled at first reading it with all the knowledge of how much harder climate action is now (and this book was published in 2024!) but as I continued it really opened my eyes to what is possible and the incredible work people are already doing.
Refreshing, inspiring, and exactly what I needed, didn’t know I needed, and could have hoped for. These are cathartic tears. I apparently made a staggering 608 highlights, so I will be able to peruse these any time I need a refresher, or a little morale boost when the state of affairs inevitably all gets to be too much.
What If We Get It Right? consists of a series of interviews with people at the forefront of climate action and resiliency. This format is a bit of a departure from how nonfiction books are usually structured, and while it may take some getting used to, I think this choice was a net positive for a couple reasons: 1) you get a diverse range of voices, providing clear delineation of each topic and offers a multitude of perspectives, rather than a single authorial point of view, and 2) makes the whole thing more accessible for the reader, because it reads like the conversation it is without the a bunch of clunky citations disrupting the flow. (Something like “A 2017 study published in the Journal of Such & Such by Jane Doe et al concluded something very academic with a bunch of numbers and convoluted wording� doesn’t make for the smoothest reading experience. There’s some facts and numbers in this book too, they’re just comparatively less prevalent than in other books and are largely confined to footnotes.)
I highly recommend the audiobook for this one. It's long (22 hours) but Johnson uses actual audio from her interviews with experts and climate justice advocates which makes the content so much more engaging than I think I would have found the print version. I learned a lot and really like the framing of finding something you're good at, something that needs done, and something that you enjoy doing to contribute to this movement. I usually avoid climate change media because it's so bleak but I found a lot of hope (desire to change things) in hearing about all the things people are already doing to address it.
All life is connected, nothing lives alone On this one and only living Earth. Home. �"This Living Earth� by Steve Connell
It was a challenge to get through the 21-hour audiobook version that I borrowed from my library, but it was so worth it! In general I much prefer reading climate books that aren’t all doom and gloom, but that actually address possible climate solutions and look at what a better future could hold for us. With a title like What If We Get It Right? I was hoping author Ayana Elizabeth Johnson would deliver something similar, and boy did she ever!
As she noted early in the book, “We can easily picture the climate change-fuelled fires, floods, droughts, and storms, and the immense suffering, all of which are now well underway. However, when it comes to better outcomes, we've largely been left hanging. That is a problem.� That’s why she created What If We Get It Right?: to help those of us who read it imagine a better future for ourselves and for the world.
The book is told through the format of interviews with climate activists, reporters, change-makers, and a whole host of other people who are involved in the climate movement in one way or another. It was neat to listen to the actual recorded interviews, which felt more dynamic and interactive than a narrator just reading the transcript. I really liked how that was handled.
At the beginning of each chapter, Ayana lists 10 problems and 10 possibilities to do with climate change—the logic being, as she explains, that “peril and possibility coexist.� The chapters explore all kinds of different topics, including:
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There were a lot of interviews that I really enjoyed. Ayana picked interview subjects who were passionate, well-spoken, and generally had positive things to say about the future of the climate movement. Some of my favourites included:
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Overall one of the biggest takeaways I got from this book was the importance of community. In so many interviews, the transition away from individualism and towards community was emphasized as a necessary step.
It's incredibly frustrating to know that we didn't have to be in this mess. There were so many other choices that could've been made way earlier on that could have averted this climate crisis completely. But it's also reassuring to know that we already have almost all of the climate solutions we need. We just need to have the drive and the courage and the political will to actually implement them. (And we all know how much harder that's going to be now, under another Trump administration...)
But if you're looking for ways to help with that, check out Ayana's to get started.
"Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. ... To hope is to give yourself to the future, and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable." —Rebecca Solnit
i was really excited for this book! but in the end it felt like i was reading a transcript of a podcast which is ultimately not what i was looking or hoping for