Put Your Superpowers to Use: An Interview with Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

“What if we act as if we love the future?” 

— Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

 

This January, AMC launched the All Out Action Plan: our five-year road map for protecting critical landscapes, fostering a welcoming outdoor community, and expanding access to the outdoors. Now, amid the blitz of federal actions that threaten public lands, scientific research, recreation, and the long-term health of the environment, we are looking to both the past and future for inspiration on how to lead in this moment — leveraging our 150-year history as a voice for the outdoors while seeking bold and creative solutions. 

Who better to talk to on this last point than Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson? A marine biologist, policy expert, and writer, Ayana is co-founder of the non-profit think tank Urban Ocean Lab, distinguished scholar at Bowdoin College, and author of The New York Times bestseller What If We Get it Right?: Visions of Climate Futures — a provocative and joyous collection of essays, interviews, data, poetry, and art that maps an inspiring landscape of climate solutions and possibilities, and shows us that it is worth the effort to get there together.  

AMC’s Jenny O’Connell sat down with Ayana to talk about harnessing creativity and joy for environmental solutions, how love fuels action, and the opportunity that awaits organizations like AMC to lead the way toward a better future for people and the outdoors. 

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. 

Jenny: Your book, What if We Get It Right?, came out last September. What are you hearing the most from readers? Is there anything about the response that has surprised you? 

Ayana: People describe it as hopeful, which I think is hilarious and also a sign that they haven’t read to the end, because there’s this whole chapter called “A Note on Hope” where I describe myself as distinctly not hopeful, but determined. Not optimistic, but absolutely not willing to give up. 

I think what people are saying is not necessarily that the book makes them hopeful, but that they’re glad for a book that’s solutions-oriented, future-looking, and not there to depress them

Jenny: The book is so multifaceted—there are 20 wide-ranging interviews, and in between there’s poetry, photo essays, music—people bringing whatever it is they have to share to the table. It’s a lot of really powerful perspectives coming together.  

Ayana: I don’t see the answer to the what if we get it right? question on climate as being a purely technical one, so a textbook of technical solutions is not the thing to offer. Our role should be in advancing environmental solutions, and in every way I can I want to model that there is no one right way, and that what this moment calls for is a massive upwelling of creativity and trying different ways to get at how we can each best be of use to meet the moment. 

Jenny: Tell me about your Climate Action Venn Diagram. Where did that come from?  

Ayana: More and more people were approaching me and asking, “What can I do? How can I help?” Basically, what the environmental movement has given to people who show up wanting to help is a generic list of things anybody can do. Vote. Protest. Donate. Spread the word. Lower your individual carbon footprint. And sure, we should all do all of those things. But if we’re asking every person, regardless of their background or areas of expertise, to do all the same stuff, then we’re missing out on this opportunity to put everyone’s superpowers to use. 

And so, this venn diagram of three overlapping circles came to me as this answer. I don’t know what you should do, because I don’t know anything about you. What are your skills, your resources, your networks? What is it that you–specifically you–can bring to the table? Which aspects of our climate challenge are you most excited to work on? And what brings you joy? 

Jenny: I love how joy is central to the call to action. That reminds me of the beginning of the book, where you’re talking about your joyous connection to nature and how that got you into this work. AMC’s work protecting critical landscapes is built around connecting people to the outdoors and facilitating joyful and meaningful experiences. How did your connection to the outdoors bring you to this work, and how does it continue to sustain you now? 

Ayana: I mean, I love life. Like, all of life on this planet.  

That’s why it’s exciting to get to live on Earth. There is this incredible biodiversity, and there are waterfalls and forests and fireflies and shooting stars and all that good stuff. Getting to spend time on the coast and in the mountains is very restorative, and it also is an important reminder of what the work is for. Because, as much as humans can be great, oftentimes I don’t do this work for humans. I do it for turtles and porcupine fish or whatever it is that’s inspiring me that day. Salamanders. I’m going through a salamander phase. 

Jenny: Have you heard of Big Night? Long live the salamanders.

Ayana: Everyone has their own motivation for wanting to protect and restore nature. And that’s fine. We don’t all have to have the same reasons. A lot of it comes down to protecting the people and the places and the species that we love. And there’s actual research that love is the strongest motivator for climate action. It’s not economic growth. What is our responsibility to the future; to future humans like? How do we want to be good ancestors? That’s what gets people to really roll up their sleeves and find their roles. 

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Jenny: In your opinion piece in Rolling Stone this February, you urged people to act locally. Can you say more about that? 

Ayana: It’s really hard to think about, as an individual, how we can affect federal policy. When we’re talking about elections where the budgets for campaigns are in the billions, it’s hard to think about how we as individuals can change the outcome. Collectively, we certainly can. But if we’re interested in advancing climate solutions, what’s important to remember is that we need all these things to change in every city, in every town, in every state, in every country, all over the world.  

And so, it really matters if we figure out how to improve public transit. How to get more bike lanes in our community. How to make sure everyone has access to composting. How to make sure we’re supporting local farmers so that we have a more robust and resilient local food system with a lighter footprint. What our local [school] curriculum is actually teaching young people about the world that we live in. All of those are very local decisions and opportunities to make a difference. Are we thinking about protecting ecosystems? Because that’s a big part of how we become more resilient to extreme weather, right?
If we have clear cut forests that lead to landslides, if we have bulldozed all of our wetlands, they can’t protect us. Thinking about all of these things as local issues that add up is not a small thing. That is the work.  

Jenny: Something that’s been buoying me lately has been knowing that people in the AMC community, even with the federal funding cuts and clawbacks, are doubling down on community science. Volunteers are still going out with their apps to track wildflowers and to measure snow. The work is continuing because people are involved on a local level, and there’s sort of this embodied connection. If you’re literally putting your body in those places, then you’re feeling those results more deeply. 

Ayana: And you’re devoted to those places, right? We protect what we love. 

Jenny: Do you have any thoughts for small environmental or outdoor organizations like AMC? How do we get it right? 

Ayana: I do think this is a moment in human history where it’s important to really reflect on how to make a difference and let go of our assumptions that the way we have been doing things is the way we should keep doing them. Because clearly it hasn’t been effective enough, right? So, how do we double down? How do we get more creative? How do we welcome more people into the work? We need to build a bigger, stronger team of people who care about having a good climate future on this planet, so how do we be a bit more strategic and tenacious in pursuit of our environmental goals? 

Jenny: Is there anything else you want to say? 

Ayana: I guess I’m just really grateful that AMC exists. I mean, it’s been supporting generations of people to have these deep relationships with nature through the trails, through the huts, through the woods and the trees. And that really is the foundation for a lot of this work. It’s what keeps people going. 

I wonder what might be next for an organization like that in 2025. Like, what more is possible? In this moment where there is talk about less sustainable logging and going back to more reliance on fossil fuels, what does it look like for AMC and every other organization standing in this moment that has gravitas and a lot of people who respect their mission to say: OK. Here’s where we go from here. Who’s in? 

I think that’s the opportunity. And it’s really exciting. Because we are writing the future right now.  

For more brave and joyous environmental solutions, read Ayana’s book, What if We Get it Right? Visions of Climate Futures and check out the What if We Get it Right? podcast here or wherever you get your podcasts.

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