‘What If We Get It Right’ Author and BC Alum Kicks Off US Fall Speaker Series

On September 19, Berkeley Carroll was proud to welcome marine biologist, climate scientist, and author Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson ‘98 for a panel discussion with students about her new book “What If We Get It Right: Visions of Climate Futures.” Dr. Johnson has been profiled in the New York Times, NPR, and you can read more about her work here. A copy of her book was made available to any student who wanted a copy.

Dr.  Johnson kicked off the fall speaker series that Upper School Director Jane Moore announced to the community earlier in the week. In a Rolling Stone interview, Dr. Johnson stated, “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…” She continued, “ 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?” 

This essential question was on the minds of our five Upper School Environmental Science students who prepared questions that framed the panel discussion. The questions posed revolved around the intersection of climate and justice, and the solutions that could help to ameliorate people from equating climate activism as counter to a productive economy. Dr. Johnson also engaged the audience with questions of her own. She asked students if they knew who coined the phrase “carbon footprint” and if they could guess which state was the largest producer of green energy. An enlightening statistic she shared during the discussion was the fact that climate issues only represent 0.9% of the topics that mainstream media and TV networks cover. 

In closing, Dr. Johnson clearly articulated what we can do to move forward to address this global issue that affects us all, “I do want to be clear that we already have the solutions we need. We could eliminate fossil fuels from our electricity, we could improve public transit, we could green our buildings, we could shift our agricultural systems to protect and restore ecosystems, like now… We don’t have to wait for some magical technology. We don’t have to wait for anything. It really just is a matter of implementation, so if you are looking around thinking, ‘how could we even do this…’ It really is a question of building the cultural change, building the political will, and using the solutions that we already have because they are right there at our fingertips.”

Click here to view the video of Dr. Johnson’s closing remarks.

Click here to view the photo gallery from the event