'The Interview': Ayana Elizabeth Johnson Has an Antidote to Our Climate Delusions

When thinking about the future of Earth, some people brush off any concerns (denialism) while others feel terrified and helpless (doomism). There’s another approach—climate optimism—but its advocates say we must choose the right kind of optimism to prevent the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.

Though it’s become widely accepted that climate change is real, the questions still remain of what steps we should take to fix the damage and whether they'll be enough. Many scientists and activists believe that the climate has already passed a tipping point and that environmental catastrophe is inevitable. In Apocalypse Never, award-winning science writer Michael Shellenberger says that it’s time to assess the crisis from a rational perspective. He argues that we’re in a much better position to curb climate change than alarmists would have us believe, and that people who bend scientific truth in order to spur environmental action are doing more harm than good.

In this guide, we’ll explain Shellenberger’s argument that environmental alarmists overstate their claims and that there’s ground for hope for our planet’s future. We’ll also look at counter-arguments to Shellenberger’s claims and examine what independent research says about the solutions he suggests. We’ll point to recent developments in industry, agriculture, and the political climate that frame the conversation around climate change.

A lot of the conversation around climate change is still about preventing it; but at this point, it seems unlikely that we can. What if, instead, we turned our efforts toward preparing for a post-climate change world?

In a stirring episode of "Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus," acclaimed actress and activist Julia Louis-Dreyfus joins forces with renowned policy-maker and environmentalist Gina McCarthy and commentator Judith Bowles. With both women recounting their personal journeys into activism, and McCarthy's transition from a bystander to an environmentalist, it's a podcast enriched with personal fervor. Louis-Dreyfus dives deep into her childhood influenced by political activism, while McCarthy shares her discovery of her own activist passion later in life, and her inclination towards policy-making grounded in hard evidence.

Their conversation doesn't shirk away from the contentious issues either. Louis-Dreyfus and McCarthy examine the place of emotion in politics, the gender bias that continues to pervade the field, and the controversial topic of climate change skepticism. As the dialogue unfolds, they recount past mistakes like the Flint Water Crisis, while also touching on their respective efforts to balance activism with personal life. It’s a podcast that blends admissions of past regrets with the wisdom acquired along a journey of dedicated activism.

When thinking about the future of Earth, some people brush off any concerns (denialism) while others feel terrified and helpless (doomism). There’s another approach—climate optimism—but its advocates say we must choose the right kind of optimism to prevent the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.

We often don’t know why changes succeed or fail—we just know that they do. As it turns out, successful change follows a pattern that can be applied again and again to help you reach your goals, spark organizational shifts, and get people aligned with your ideas.

In Switch, Chip and Dan Heath dive into the inner workings of change, offering actionable advice for creating changes that not only succeed but stick.

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is a New York Times best-selling, no-nonsense, apolitical discussion of climate change. Bill Gates's decades of philanthropy inform his writing on the urgent need to curb emissions while still encouraging development. Complementing his empathetic approach to reducing carbon emissions, he uses his experience in the technology industry to highlight the most practical technology-based strategies for reducing global carbon emissions with a straightforward assessment of their challenges and limitations.

While Gates discusses several promising emergent sources of green energy throughout the book, he also stresses the need to reduce emissions quickly. Therefore, this guide focuses on the technologies and strategies he discusses that are most feasible today. For clarity, we’ve broken Gates’s ideas into three categories: the climate problem, its causes, and Gates’s proposed strategies for curbing emissions. This guide supplements Gates’s discussion with commentary on scientific principles, timely examples of the impacts of climate change, and additional data and statistics.

The US Senate has broken through its infamous gridlock to deliver two major pieces of climate change legislation: passing the Inflation Reduction Act and ratifying the Kigali Amendment. How did it happen, and what does it mean for Americans?

Though it’s become widely accepted that climate change is real, the questions still remain of what steps we should take to fix the damage and whether they'll be enough. Many scientists and activists believe that the climate has already passed a tipping point and that environmental catastrophe is inevitable. In Apocalypse Never, award-winning science writer Michael Shellenberger says that it’s time to assess the crisis from a rational perspective. He argues that we’re in a much better position to curb climate change than alarmists would have us believe, and that people who bend scientific truth in order to spur environmental action are doing more harm than good.

In this guide, we’ll explain Shellenberger’s argument that environmental alarmists overstate their claims and that there’s ground for hope for our planet’s future. We’ll also look at counter-arguments to Shellenberger’s claims and examine what independent research says about the solutions he suggests. We’ll point to recent developments in industry, agriculture, and the political climate that frame the conversation around climate change.

When thinking about the future of Earth, some people brush off any concerns (denialism) while others feel terrified and helpless (doomism). There’s another approach—climate optimism—but its advocates say we must choose the right kind of optimism to prevent the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.

Though it’s become widely accepted that climate change is real, the questions still remain of what steps we should take to fix the damage and whether they'll be enough. Many scientists and activists believe that the climate has already passed a tipping point and that environmental catastrophe is inevitable. In Apocalypse Never, award-winning science writer Michael Shellenberger says that it’s time to assess the crisis from a rational perspective. He argues that we’re in a much better position to curb climate change than alarmists would have us believe, and that people who bend scientific truth in order to spur environmental action are doing more harm than good.

In this guide, we’ll explain Shellenberger’s argument that environmental alarmists overstate their claims and that there’s ground for hope for our planet’s future. We’ll also look at counter-arguments to Shellenberger’s claims and examine what independent research says about the solutions he suggests. We’ll point to recent developments in industry, agriculture, and the political climate that frame the conversation around climate change.

A Promised Land is Barack Obama’s memoir of his early political career and the first two years of his presidency. Obama takes us on his journey from relative obscurity as a biracial kid from Hawaii to becoming a transformative figure as the nation’s first African-American president. At every step of his career, Obama was guided by a deep faith in the fundamental unity of Americans; the potential and promise of America; the necessity of compromise and seeking common ground; and above all, the power of the democratic system to heal our divisions and effect real change for ordinary people.