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The Striking Parallels Between Covid-19 and Climate Change
Marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson on oceans, the coronavirus, and the climate policies of Donald Trump and Joe Biden
This is a busy time for Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, PhD, a marine biologist, environmental policy expert, and CEO of conservation consulting firm Ocean Collectiv. Earlier this year, she advised Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren on environmental policy. Now she’s about to publish an anthology of essays, poetry, and visual art about the climate crisis and launch a podcast about climate change on Gimlet Media.
The book, All We Can Save, and the podcast, How to Save a Planet, share the same goal: showing people how they can get involved in the fight against climate change.
Johnson has been working toward this goal for nearly 20 years. She started her career at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where she wanted to learn how scientists could help create good environmental policies.
That’s why the Trump administration’s rollback of EPA regulations cuts so deep. “Any attacks on the EPA and the work of those really dedicated civil servants or rollbacks in hard-fought environmental protections are just such a brutal punch in the gut to the environment and to the committed staff who make all of those good things happen for the planet,” she says.
Johnson is urgently looking for ways to mitigate climate change and achieve justice and equity for the historically marginalized communities who bear the brunt of its effects. She pushed, for example, to address concerns about environmental justice and equity in Warren’s Blue New Deal policy. “I think people aren’t as motivated as they would be if they knew what the finish line looks like and what that would feel like and how much better that would be,” Johnson says. “So, I think that’s the gap I’m trying to fill.”
Johnson spoke to OneZero about oceans, climate justice, parallels in the responses to the coronavirus and climate change, how Joe Biden and Donald Trump differ on climate, and her new book and podcast.
OneZero: How does the future of the earth’s oceans intersect with climate and environmental justice?
Ayana…
