During the 2024 General Conference of The United Methodist Church held in Charlotte, North Carolina, a group of United Methodist clergy and lay people joined an interfaith rally and march. The speakers, signs, and the short march called for an end to the big money funding of fossil fuels.
Many of us with environmental concerns and a care for climate stewardship have come across the work of Dr. Anya Elizabeth Johnson. Her latest book, What If We Get It Right? continues the discussion of the much appreciated, All We Can Save, incorporating stories and a community of voices into a book that offers nuanced insights and a conversational feel. Dr. Johnson brings her expertise to the topic, but also heart. As such she makes room for a book where invitation, challenges, hope, and personability all come together.
What If We Get It Right? borrows the rhythm of a podcast. Dr. Johnson opens space for its contributors to speak right to us, experts, poets, and envisioners alike. She sets a kitchen-table tone right from the beginning, by introducing herself—the person. She gives us a slice of autobiography, letting us know who she is, why she cares, and where the seeds of her work were nurtured. It is a story of a Brooklyn-raised child encountering cultural and oceanic waters. We hear the story of her wonder at encountering a coral reef in Florida, peering through the clearness of a glass bottom boat. And the story also of the less-clear confusion of an adorable black child navigating the cultural complexities of swimming in an American swimming pool.
Following the introduction, she gets down to the business of addressing climate change. The first chapters are the hardest. Dr. Johnson does not belittle the reader. The ground of the crisis is established right up front. We were children once, but we are adults now. This is the truth, and Dr. Johnson assures us we will make it through the telling of it.
From there the book opens up with sections and conversations. Each section has its own topic, including “Possibility,” “Follow the Money,” and “Community Foremost.” The sections start with two facing columns of information. One column reminds us where we are. The next column offers what is possible, and what can be done. The interviews that follow offer information and a pathway from one set of columns to the next. It is a pattern that offers real hope.
In preparing this review for the February newsletter, I focused on the parts of the book specific to money and community. The “Follow the Money” section includes an interview with climate champion and United Methodist Bill McKibben. (Bill KcKibben spoke at a Fossil Free UMC focused Movement Café last year, sharing a message urging United Methodists to seek fossil fuel divestment in the denomination.)
The financial realities and grim statistics Dr. Johnson shares in this section set the stage for seeking possibilities to get it right. She notes the cost of property related damage due to burning fossil fuels comes to about $500 million dollars every year. By 2050, yearly economic damage will be perhaps $38 trillion. Despite this, pension funds maintain trillions in assets that include significant investments in fossil fuels, and big banks continue to lend big money for new fossil fuel projects.
The remedy? To flip this on its head, divesting from fossil fuels and reinvesting in clean energy, a move that will put investments to work for good. Trillions in revenue is waiting for these investments to be made.
What If We Get It Right? offers a lot of this kind of information, bringing specific challenges alongside specific remedies and then sharing a conversation to inform and encourage us. With this book, Dr. Johnson invites us to get our act together in a way that is as personable and engaging as it is urgent. And beyond that, Dr. Johnson wants us to imagine and anticipate the joy, the community, and the possibility is both the now and the future of this good, hard work done together.
I recommend this book.
What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures, by Dr. Anya Elizabeth Johnson is published by One World, Penguin Random House, 2024.
Book website, getitright.earth