Hope (and a Podcast We Love) from Underwater
By
David Tuft
“This is an opportunity to live a different and better life” – Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
Personal action to address the climate crisis gets a bad rap for being expensive or requiring sacrifice. But Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson flips the script on climate action in a New York Times interview that we love.
What’s so great about owning all this junk that ends up in landfills? Or having plastics on our beaches, in our drinking water, and seafood? “Don’t you know how expensive and inconvenient climate change is going to be?” Good questions, Dr. J.
We think of Harvest the same way. What’s so great about worsening air quality with pollutants from our gas furnaces and water heaters? Or the whoooshing sound of the furnace firing up only to be followed by that ice-blast cooling in our rooms?
What we weren’t expecting, however, was a big shout-out to heat pumps from this marine biologist. “We need to take out all these boilers. We need to change our HVAC system. We need to put in heat pumps, induction stoves, electric water heaters, solar panels, green roofs.” Good answers, too, Dr. J.
That got us in a good mood. And we think her interview will get you feeling optimistic too. Listen to the podcast here and keep an eye out for her next book, “What if We Get It Right” for, “maps [of] an inspiring landscape of possible climate futures.”
Photo credit: Landon Speers, 2020
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