In Conversation with Jordan Kisner on Thresholds

This is Thresholds, a series of conversations with writers about experiences that completely turned them upside down, disoriented them in their lives, changed them, and changed how and why they wanted to write. Hosted by Jordan Kisner, author of the essay collection* Thin Places*. Thresholds is a co-production between Black Mountain Institute and Literary Hub

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“Because I’m not an optimist, because I don’t feel that much hope, if I waited to feel hopeful I’d be waiting a very long time without acting. So I decouple hope from action, hope from strategy– for myself personally, because of my own disposition. The word that I embrace, or the concept that I return to instead, is possibility, and thinking about what futures are still possible and how do we reel them closer into existence?”

Jordan sits down with marine biologist, writer, and climate advocate Ayana Elizabeth Johnson to talk about her mission to fight climate fatalism, her love of Rachel Carson, and her skepticism of the impulse to look for “hope” in the face of climate change — as opposed to possibility, or joy.

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**Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson **is a marine biologist, policy expert, writer, and teacher working to help create the best possible climate future. She is co-founder ofUrban Ocean Lab, a think tank for the future of coastal cities, and is the Roux Distinguished Scholar at Bowdoin College. She authored The New York Times bestseller What If We Get it Right?: Visions of Climate Futures*. *

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Previously, she co-edited the climate anthology All We Can Save, co-founded The All We Can Save Project, and co-created and co-hosted the Spotify/Gimlet climate solutions podcast How to Save a Planet. She also co-authored the Blue New Deal, a roadmap for including the ocean in climate policy. Previously, as executive director of the Waitt Institute, she co-founded the Blue Halo Initiative and led the Caribbean’s first successful island-wide ocean zoning effort. Early in her career, she developed U.S. federal ocean policy at the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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*For more Thresholds, visit us at thisisthresholds.com**. *Original music by Lora-Faye Åshuvud.