The Most Important Question

Finding Joy In Climate Solutions


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What if we get it right?

That's today's big question, and my returning guest is Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist. She is a policy expert, a writer, and a teacher working to help create the best possible climate future. She co-founded and leads the Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for the future of coastal cities, and is the Roux Distinguished Scholar at Bowdoin College.

Ayana authored the forthcoming book, What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures, co-edited the best selling climate anthology, All We Can Save, and co-created and co-hosted the Spotify slash Gimlet podcast, How to Save a Planet. Lastly, she co-authored the Blue New Deal, a roadmap for including the ocean, what an idea, into climate policy.

This is a special one for me.

Ayana was guest number seven or eight on the show a long time ago. She took a chance on us. And almost 200 episodes later, a pandemic later, a few degrees of warming later, a lot has changed.

But Ayana's passion for nature, her influence on U.S. and global policy and our one wonderful habitable planet has not.

I am such a huge fan of hers, and I am so thankful she came back to spend time with us.

If you have been trying to find your way into this whole thing, today just might be your day.

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INI Book Club:

  • What If We Get It Right by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

  • All We Can Save by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katherine Wilkinson

  • Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club

  • Links:

    • Subscribe to Ayana's What If We Get It Right? newsletter

    • Find climate action resources to pair with What If We Get It Right?

    • Join and donate to the All We Can Save Project

    • Donate and check out the Resource Hub at Urban Ocean Lab

    • Keep up with more of Ayana's work

    • Follow us:

      • Subscribe to our newsletter at importantnotimportant.com

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      • Produced by Willow Beck

      • Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com

      • Advertise with us: importantnotimportant.com/c/sponsors

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