Meet the Climate Leader Who Wants You to Abandon Hope—and Get to Work

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson believes humans can restore and protect nature while staring down a planetary crisis. She’s convinced we can limit warming, prevent climate disasters, transform our culture, and find a way to have abundant and healthy life on Earth. But don’t call her an optimist.

“Hope can be a very passive emotion,” says Johnson, a marine biologist, policy expert, and writer. “I think it’s insufficient. I think it’s tenuous.” It’s taken more than positive vibes for Johnson to become a leading voice on climate solutions. Instead, she says she has been driven by deeper forces like tenacity, responsibility to others, and a deep-rooted love for what the future could be. 

Envisioning brighter days ahead—without donning rose-colored glasses—is the focus of What If We Get It Right?, the best-selling volume she published in September. The book serves up inspiration for climate action through poetry, art, and interviews with 20 leaders tackling solutions from all different angles: an entrepreneur spurring the wealthy to invest in decarbonization, an ocean farmer growing regenerative crops of kelp and oysters, a Hollywood director who wants to change the stories people tell about climate.   

Johnson says her goal with the project was to offer a “smorgasbord” of approaches to addressing planetary warming and show readers where they might tap in to help. Rather than dealing in apocalyptic predictions, she wanted to focus on the joy and possibility that still exists: “If all we think about is disaster, how are we going to build the future that we want to live in?” 

Her commitment to turning the planet’s fate around is built on her love for the natural world. Growing up in Brooklyn, Johnson recalls feeling struck by the beauty of autumn leaves and spring crocuses, colorful Blue Jays that would brighten the backyard, and trips to the aquarium—“this magical, wonderful place where you get to meet other creatures.” Her affinity for sea life drove her to a career in marine biology, and she spent a decade working in the Caribbean, where she saw coral reefs dying from rising ocean temperatures, pollution, and overfishing. The work revealed how seriously threatened her beloved ecosystems were—and deepened her commitment to saving them. “You can still feel awe while your heart is aching,” she says. 

In 2018 she founded the Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank focused on preparing coastal cities for climate change. Soon after, she coauthored the Blue New Deal, a federal ocean policy platform that, among other actions, called for deploying offshore wind farms, rebuilding fish stocks, and expanding marine protected areas. Johnson has also cohosted a popular climate solutions podcast, How to Save a Planet, and coedited the 2020 book All We Can Save, a collection of essays from women in the environmental movement. 

Along the way Johnson, who now lives in Maine and teaches climate communications at Bowdoin College, has focused on not only identifying climate solutions, but also inspiring people to put them into action. Her combination of science smarts and communication savvy offers “as big a breath of fresh air as the climate movement has ever felt,” says Bill McKibben, a noted author and environmentalist. “She crucially understands the role that activism must play in getting us to actually confront the crises of our time.” 

Johnson has also shown a knack for fostering connections among different kinds of climate leaders. In What If We Get It Right? she puts that circle of friends and colleagues to work answering the book’s central question. Getting it right could mean tapping into ancestral knowledge and treating the Earth like family, as farmer and food justice activist Leah Penniman suggests. It could involve scaling up emerging technologies like small nuclear reactors and carbon removal, according to Jigar Shah, a Department of Energy official during the Biden administration. It could mean designing cities that are not only better for the environment, but also beautiful and functional for people who live there, per architect and curator Paola Antonelli. 

That’s not to say avoiding the losses of unchecked climate change won’t involve trade-offs. “You can’t have it all,” Johnson says. “You can’t have both rabid consumerism and a sky full of birds.” But she sees cutting out some conveniences—like single-use plastics and limitless air travel—as well worth it. “Sure, you can consider that a sacrifice,” she says. “Or you could be like, ‘No, I’m choosing birds.’”

Charting a better way forward will also require more people to get involved, Johnson says. To help her readers find a role that suits them, the book includes a Climate Action Venn Diagram (above) designed to identify the sweet spot between what they’re good at, what brings them joy, and what needs to get done. Even if everyone pitches in, there’s no way to “stop” or “solve” climate change, Johnson acknowledges. The climate has already changed: Global temperatures are at record highs, ocean levels are rising, and natural disasters like the devastating Los Angeles wildfires are intensifying. 

But even if the odds are long and hope is hard to come by, the work goes on. After all, every patch of habitat saved, or bit of warming reined in, makes a difference—and every person has a part to play. “Giving up on the future of life on Earth is, to me, not an option,” Johnson says. “So once we take that option off the table, the question then becomes, ‘Okay, well, what can each of us do to make things better?’”

This story originally ran in the Spring 2025 issue as “Beyond Hope.” To receive our print magazine, become a member by making a donation today.