Bowdoin to Host Forum on Climate Change and Election

The event will also be discussing issues raised in Johnson's latest book, What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures (published this week by Penguin Random House). The work comprises several essays by Johnson and some twenty interviews with people who, she says, all play a part in creating the future. These include farmers, foresters, architects, financiers, policymakers, activists, and technologists. The visually striking publication also includes art, poetry, and data, exploring what it takes to make the right decisions on climate policy.

Rather than focus on dire warnings about how bad things could get (although one chapter of the book does look at this), Johnson says she has chosen to stress more what things could look like if we get climate policy right.

One significant factor, she says, is that we already have many of the solutions we need. "We know how to transition to clean energy. We know how to green our buildings. We know how to grow food in ways that are softer on the planet. We know how to protect and restore nature and have better public transport." There are no big mysteries here, explains Johnson. "It's just a question of figuring out how to unlock the political will and the cultural shifts that let us do all those things."

Johnson says one of the reasons she's looking forward to the upcoming conversation so much is that she did not get a chance to interview Stinnett and Jones in her book. (She would love to have included them, she says, but by this time the publishers said there was no room for any more chapters!)

Friday's event starts with a reception and book signing at 6:00 p.m. before the discussion gets underway at 7:00 p.m.

This event comes near the start of a nationwide tour-beginning in New York City on September 17-during which Johnson and her colleagues will visit nineteen cities by the end of October.