‘My Anti-Apocalypse Mixtape:’ What if the Answer to the Climate Crisis Is a Question?
What if the answer to our planet’s climate crisis was a question? That instead of limiting our spectrum of solutions to recycling more, driving electric cars, and voting (which are indeed great things), we let our imaginations run wild — exploring the possibilities of what could happen if we both collectively and individually approached climate change “as if we love the future?”
It’s a question that climate activist and marine biologist, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, asks in her new book, What If We Get It Right? It’s a book that reads more like a curiously helpful map than the usual doom-esque climate texts, and alternatively, invites readers to peruse its pages like a treasure hunt in a quest to discover the depths of the climate crisis and ultimately, where we fit in its future.
“I think so often, the climate question, or implied question, is, ‘How do we avoid the apocalypse?’ And that’s not necessarily motivating or inspiring for a lot of people, myself included,” says Johnson. “I don’t really spend a lot of my time thinking about the problem. I spend all my time thinking about the solutions. I mean, we have to understand the problem… But then what do we do about it?”
