Seaweed, Green Roofs, and Making Environmentalism Fun with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

Summary

Podcast Summary:

That Can't Be True with Chelsea Clinton
Episode: Seaweed, Green Roofs, and Making Environmentalism Fun with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
Date: April 23, 2026
Host: Chelsea Clinton
Guest: Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
Duration: ~43 minutes

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Overview

In this vibrant and optimistic episode, Chelsea Clinton welcomes marine biologist, climate policy expert, and author Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. Together, they explore the intersections of environmentalism and public health, discussing actionable climate solutions, the importance of finding joy in activism, the role oceans play in climate change, and how everyone can help shape a better future by leveraging their unique skills. The episode is infused with warmth, humor, memorable moments from climate-themed dance parties, and deep dives into everything from seaweed snacks to the truth about plastics and public land policy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Making Climate Action Fun: Dance Parties & Joy

• Climate Dance Parties: Dr. Johnson explains hosting climate dance parties as innovative "climate communication and community building."
  • Emphasizes that such parties give concerned but lonely climate advocates a joyful way to connect:

    “Talk about building electrification while doing the electric slide. Like, anything is possible. Maybe a few romances will be sparked. Who knows?” (03:19, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson)

  • Attendees dress up as climate solutions (e.g., wind turbines, urban tree canopies, drip tape irrigation).
  • Party name tag stickers prompt people: "My favorite climate solution is..." (05:16)
  • Underlying motto:

    “We can take climate change seriously without taking ourselves seriously, and that balance has been lost.” (04:07, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson)

2. That Can’t Be True Segment: Current Policy Threats

• Clip from Alexis Nicole (“Black Forager”) discussing alarming policy moves affecting the US Forest Service.
• Dr. Johnson details the Trump administration’s plan to move US Forest Service headquarters from D.C. to Salt Lake City and drastically cut research budgets:
  • Predicts up to 80% staff loss; notes that research is location-specific and moving HQ and closing field sites makes little ecological sense. (07:04–09:37)
  • Ties it to growing wildfire risk, less informed decision-making, and more dangerous outcomes as climate change increases fire frequency and intensity. (09:54)

3. Artemis 2 and Perspective on Earth

• Reflections on the Artemis 2 lunar mission and the emotional impact of seeing Earth from space:
  • Dr. Johnson admits she’s always been “obsessed with this planet, especially the salty ocean parts,” but was moved by the mission’s display of competence, inclusivity, and sense of shared destiny. (11:19)
  • Notable quote on planetary stewardship:

    “We really have to figure out how to get it right…we aren’t all going to Mars. That’s just not the way this is gonna play out.” (12:47, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson)

  • Celebrates the “magic” of our biosphere and photosynthesis. (12:53)

4. Oceans as Climate Solution

• Dr. Johnson urges listeners to see the ocean not just as a climate change victim but as “a massive part of our global system” and a powerful tool for climate solutions:
  • “The ocean has something like 35% of the climate solutions we need…” (15:55)
  • Actionable tips:
    • Eat lower on the food chain: more oysters, mussels, seaweed; less shrimp and large predator fish (17:40)
    • Farming seaweed/oysters is nutritious and low-impact.
    • Cautions against most shrimp: “Up to 90% of what’s caught is thrown back dead.” (18:17)
    • Choose smaller fish (sardines, anchovies) for health and sustainability.

5. Household Climate Choices & Systemic Impact

• Emphasizes that home choices (like induction stoves, electric cars, solar panels) matter both for climate and public health.
  • “Indoor air quality in places that have gas appliances can be really bad, which is especially risky for children with asthma.” (19:58)
  • Regrets recent rollbacks of governmental incentives for greener choices. (20:47)
• Warns about the outsized impact of retirement/investment portfolios that include fossil fuels—calls for divestment. (21:10)
  • “[Divestment] could be a bigger negative impact than anything else you’re doing positive in terms of eating a plant-based diet…” (21:24)
• Stresses the need to engage beyond household action—community, policy, and system-level changes are indispensable. (22:20)
  • “If we spend all of our time and energy obsessing over our individual carbon footprint, then we lose the ability to invest energy in…municipal composting, building codes, bike lanes.” (22:21)

6. The Climate Action Venn Diagram

• Dr. Johnson’s framework for personal climate action:
  1. What are you good at?
  2. What work needs doing?
  3. What brings you joy?
  • “Finding each of us our way to that sweet spot in the center…not just generic actions, but leveraging our superpowers, which is exactly what this moment calls for.” (25:03)
  • Recommends Project Drawdown as a resource for high-impact solutions and data on priorities. (23:34; 24:15)

7. Food Waste & Youth Leadership

• Praises young people for leading food waste amelioration and composting initiatives:
  • “So many of the most impactful food waste amelioration programs have really been driven by young people…” (24:38, Chelsea Clinton)

8. Joy, Whimsy, and “Whimsy-Maxing”

• Emphasizes joy as essential for sustained climate activism:
  • “The only way to stick with the work for the long haul is to find something that keeps you curious and delighted.” (26:06)
  • Notes Liz Plank’s term “whimsy-maxing”—bringing playfulness into serious causes. (26:19)

9. Plastics, Microplastics, and Misinformation

• Plastics are rooted in fossil fuels and as energy transitions away from fossil fuels, the industry pushes plastics harder.
  • “Plastics are made from fossil fuels…If we’re not putting it in our cars, they want it to go into packaging.” (29:02)
  • Myth-busts the “floating island of plastic”—most ocean plastic is microplastics, not floating trash islands visible from space. (29:11; 30:49)
  • Calls for upstream interventions (managing waste before it enters waterways), and criticizes misleading recycling labeling and corporate responsibility. (31:00–34:13)
  • “We’re told we as consumers are creating the demand, but a lot of us were never asking for this stuff. You may want to buy a computer mouse…not the five layers of plastic packaging.” (32:45)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On the mindset for climate advocacy:

  “We can take climate change seriously without taking ourselves seriously.” (04:07, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson)

• On meeting fellow advocates through fun:

  “Maybe, you know, find your new climate bestie on the dance floor. Talk about building electrification while doing the electric slide.” (03:19, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson)

• On climate solutions already existing:

  “We have the solutions we need…It really is a matter of how quickly and how justly we’re going to make this transition.” (39:15, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson)

• On shifting the narrative about oceans:

  “I want people to look to the ocean as not just a victim…but also this massive part of our global system…how can we help the ocean help us?” (15:55, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson)

• On food choices:

  “Oysters are kind of like the most luxurious climate solution you can indulge in.” (17:40, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson)

• On plastic myth-busting:

  “It is the most obscene example of greenwashing I can think of that we’ve all been trained to think if I just recycle a little harder, that will solve this whole problem.” (33:11, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson)

• On the power of investing for change:

  “Every dollar we spend is a vote for the future we want to live in.” (21:10, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson)

• On personal and collective climate action:

  “If that’s all we do [lower our own footprint], we’re just not bringing our A game.” (25:03, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson)

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Key Segment Timestamps

• Opening & Party Discussion: 02:04–05:39
• That Can’t Be True (Policy threats): 06:05–09:37
• Artemis 2 reflections: 10:20–12:53
• Oceans as solutions & food advice: 15:35–19:23
• Household and systemic climate action: 19:58–22:20
• Climate Action Venn Diagram: 23:30–26:06
• Joy & Whimsy in activism: 26:06–26:50
• Plastics and microplastics explainer: 28:27–34:13
• Lightning round (Fact or Fiction): 34:45–41:42
• Final reflections on hope and agency: 41:14–42:45

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Takeaways

• Climate action can—and should—be joyful and community-driven.
• The ocean is crucial for both absorbing climate impacts and providing solutions.
• Policy and community efforts far outweigh isolated individual actions; invest in collective solutions as well as personal change.
• Many solutions, from building codes to sustainable diets, already exist and are ready to be implemented.
• Don’t fall for the myth that endless personal recycling or eco-consumerism is the answer; demand systemic and corporate accountability.
• Find your place in climate action by matching your skills, local needs, and sources of joy—then bring your creativity and community along.

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For more on Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, follow her at @ayanaeliza on Instagram and check out her book What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures.

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Transcript

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Lemonade.

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[Chelsea Clinton]

Why did I search the Internet for answers to my cold sore problem? Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled with images of alarmingly graphic source

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

in various stages of ooze.

[Chelsea Clinton]

I can clear my search history, but I could never unsee that.

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[Chelsea Clinton]

Welcome to that Can't Be True, a show that sorts fact from fiction, especially on issues impacting our health. I'm Chelsea Clinton, and today we're talking about something I spend a lot of time thinking about, and not just because it was recently Earth Day. Our oceans are getting warme. Our wildfire season seems to be starting earlier and earlier. Microplastics are in our seafood and our bodies. And bluntly, we're surrounded by reminders that the way we treat our planet and have treated our planet for decades, arguably centuries, affects our health in lots of ways and ways that we shouldn't ignore. So as we think about how to prioritize keeping our Earth safe to help keep us safe and healthy, I thought we should talk to Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson. There's really just, I don't think a better person to have this conversation with. She started her career as a marine biologist and has since expanded her reach well beyond the oceans to become known as appropriately, the go to expert when discussing not only climate science, but importantly climate solutions. And she does all this work with as we'll talk about a lot of joy and optimism. She also has an amazing new book out called what if We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures. Hi.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Hello. How's it going?

[Chelsea Clinton]

Thank you so much for doing this with us today.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Oh, thanks for having me.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Do you prefer Ayanna or Dr. Johnson? What do you prefer?

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Either one is fine. Okay, what do you prefer, Chelsea or Dr. Clinton?

[Chelsea Clinton]

Chelsea for sure.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Okay, let's go first names.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Yeah. The only people that I feel weird when they call me by my first name are my students.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Mm. Oh. I definitely make them call me a professor or doctor.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Right. I'm like. I'm like, this is weird.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Yeah. I tell them they can call me Ayanna after they graduate and they get so excited, like at commencement.

[Chelsea Clinton]

That's pretty funny.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

I'm like, wow, that was the thing you were looking forward to.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Okay, well, Ayanna, thank you so much for being with us today. It's certainly a very busy time. Of course, there's a lot going on with both kind of science as it relates to climate Change, whether or not we have science as relates to climate change. And also, you're throwing climate dance parties, so you're just really busy.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

All equally important. Yes.

[Chelsea Clinton]

As someone who grew up as a dancer who throws dance parties with my children all the time at home, I'm just so curious what the genesis of the climate dance parties was like, when did all of a sudden you. Or maybe it was not all of a sudden. Maybe it was like an organic growth. You're like, we need to have dance parties.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

It is that for sure. I also think of parties as a form of communication. Like, I do a lot of climate communication. I feel like we've left parties out as a way to engage with people, to communicate with people, and as a form of community building. And you have all these people who are really concerned and, like, fairly well informed about the climate risks that we're facing, who are freaked out and alone. And I felt like we just needed a chance to shake all that off, meet new people with shared concerns. Maybe, you know, find your new climate bestie on the dance floor. Talk about building electrification while doing the electric slide. Like, anything is possible. Maybe a few romances will be sparked. Who knows?

[Chelsea Clinton]

I mean, I love all of this,

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

and I guess one of my mottos is we can take climate change seriously without taking ourselves seriously, and that that balance has been lost.

[Chelsea Clinton]

And I know that people dress up sometimes as different climate solutions.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Yeah, this has been. We had the paperback launch for the book what if We Get It Right? At the Brooklyn Botanic Gard on Tuesday, and there are people dressed up as wind turbines or drip tape irrigation, which was one I had not seen coming.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Awesome.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

The winning costume was urban tree canopy, which can help reduce heat in the inner city and native pollinators. The crowd went wild. I did not expect that.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Dr. Johnson. I have a view of someone with, like, a big kind of canopy hanging off their head with, like, little crown flowers and beads, like, almost ornaments.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Yeah, Tendrils, for sure. And, like, a T shirt with bees and pollinators on it.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Fantastic.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Yeah. So it was just an absolute hoot.

[Chelsea Clinton]

I love that. All right, well, I'm storing Halloween costume ideas while we're talking, and maybe one

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

of my favorite parts is that the name tags stickers that you can fill out. They don't say my name is. They say, my favorite climate solution is. Which to me, is actually much more important information about a person. I'm like, are we going to talk about compost? Are we going to be talking about bike lanes? Like, where are we at Green roofs Like, what are we? What do we need to get into together? So it's been really fun.

[Chelsea Clinton]

I'm so glad. We love the American Museum of Natural History. We also live in New York City. And I think one of the great gifts of living in New York City is being able to take our small humans to that museum, and they get to learn everything about, you know, the depths of the ocean.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

So cool.

[Chelsea Clinton]

To the heights of space, which we'll talk about in a little bit. I want to switch to our that Can't Be True segment where we play some tape that we've seen recently on the Internet.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Feels like a terrifying pop quiz, but let's do it.

[Chelsea Clinton]

The only right answer is what you want to share.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Your other guests are so good at this.

[Chelsea Clinton]

You're gonna be great. You're gonna be great. So this is a recent clip from Alexis Nicole, who goes by Black Forager on Instagram. So we're gonna take a listen and get your reaction.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

She's a gem.

[Alexis Nicole (Black Forager)]

Hey. So I didn't think this needed to be said, but apparently it does. We want an intact and functioning forest, and we don't want a new forever war in the Middle East. We do want research positions to stay where they are so we can continue doing important academic work to make sure that our biodiversity stays intact. We don't want to annihilate a society. I know, it's crazy.

[Chelsea Clinton]

So can you just level set for us? Like, is the Trump administration dismantling the Forest Service? And what does this mean?

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

That seems to be the plan, right? To dramatically cut the budget, but also do something really radical, which is move the headquarters of the U.S. forest Service from Washington, D.C. where it's been, where generations of scientists have been working to get really good information to inform federal policymaking and manage our national forests really well. This resource that we as citizens of the United States own collectively, and instead move that headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah, a state that has a track record of wanting to dismantle public lands, sell them off to the highest bidder. This is something the senator there has actually proposed in Congress. And, you know, most people are not going to move, uproot their families and their lives. Living being based in D.C. moving to salt Lake City for a job that's completely in flux about what that will even mean, what kind of resources they'll have to be able to continue, continue to do that work. So we can expect to lose 80% of the staff of that agency. I mean, you don't know until it happens, but we can expect the Majority of the people working at the forest service in D.C. will not be making that move. A small fraction will. And then we also have Forest Service research facilities around the country and the idea is to close those down. And obviously, or this should be obvious, if you're doing research in a particular place about a particular forest, you can't actually do that research somewhere else, Right?

[Chelsea Clinton]

Well, because, Ayanna, we have forests over

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

the country, all over the country, millions of acres of protected land or sorry, public lands where the logging is managed, trying to figure out what sustainable use of the forests might look like, how to deal with research on how to reduce wildfire risks, how to adapt to climate change as species ranges are shifting, where these different species can live, as diseases and infestations that might be occurring naturally are exacerbated by climate and these other factors. Right. All of the research that goes into understanding that so we can manage our forests well is based in specific places. You cannot move all of that to Utah.

[Chelsea Clinton]

And this comes on the heels of previous cuts last year and also cuts to our capacity to deploy and adequately protect and pay the really courageous men and women who fight forest fires.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

And of course, these fires are becoming more common because of climate change. Right. So the important context all this is, of course, climate change. That's making wildfires a bigger risk and having less information at a time when there's more risk seems scary. It's scary, it's dangerous, it's potentially deadly in all these different ways and it's totally unnecessary.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Right. I do want to come back to the oceans, but before we do, you know, we're talking, you know, only really a few days after the return of the Artemis 2 mission and kind of, thankfully, the successful, safe reentry of our four astronauts from their nine day journey around the moon.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

I was so nervous for them at the end there.

[Chelsea Clinton]

We watched it live. I was like riveted with my children watching it live. And certainly like, we were very nervous too during the six minute blackout period and, you know, just full of kind of gratitude and pride and kind of celebration and community and solidarity because it just felt so wondrous that we traveled to the far side of the moon. And also admittedly because of what someone, a reporter called kind of watching the Artemis 2 mission, quote, unquote, competency porn.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Liz Plank, she always finds exactly the right words.

[Chelsea Clinton]

So I wonder if you felt all those emotions that we felt at home in addition to the nervousness and now that you've had time to process your reaction, like, how do you feel today? As a scientist and as a educator,

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

I've never really been that interested in other. In leaving planet Earth, in learning a ton about other planets. I've always just been like really obsessed with this one. And especially the salty ocean parts. Right.

[Chelsea Clinton]

You weren't the kid like me who went to space camp.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

No interest in space camp. I don't know, just like didn't appeal to me. But there's something about this particular mission and I think the charisma, the competency of the astronauts on display, the collectivism in this moment, like this is something where everyone had a critical role to play in pulling this off. Like the entire team. And seeing the faces in the control room at NASA, how many women were in that room who would not have been there, you know, decades before, who had the opportunity to follow their dreams and develop their scientific and engineering abilities to the point where they could be, you know, co leading this mission was just super exciting to see as a woman in science and just thinking about how much we're going to learn from that mission. As all the information that's collected is processed. And of course, as the astronauts were describing, just seeing the Earth from space makes it so clear that we are floating out there in the blackness and that it is one planet that we're sharing. I'm like, we really have to figure out how to get it right there. Like we aren't all going to Mars. That's just not the way this is gonna play out. And the biosphere, our atmosphere, the fact that we have water and it's the only planet that we know of that is plants and photosynthesis, which to me is like the ultimate magic of like photons becoming sugar. This incredible carbon and water cycle that we have that keeps us all alive, it just put all of that magnificence wonder into such stark relief. And yeah, it was just so freaking impressive.

[Chelsea Clinton]

My fifth marathon is right around the corner and so most of my free time these days when I'm not working or with my kids is spent on running or thinking about running or thinking about what else I should be doing for my training in addition to running. And I really don't want to have to worry about what I'm going to wear while running or cross training. And I really have loved the Feathertech short sleeve top from Fabletics, especially as the weather gets nicer here in New York City. The VIP membership also gives you access to Fabletics scrubs for the healthcare workers in your life. Their scrubs are made with durable water repellent fabric and your first scrub set is $15 when you check out as a new VIP member, Fabletics already has incredible deals and I'm really excited for an exclusive offer just for our listeners. You get 80% off everything when you sign up as a VIP with Fabletics. You can go to fabletics.com can't be true. Take a quick style quiz and be sure to select Can't Be True when prompted to unlock your 80% off. That's Fabletics.com can't be true Amazon Pharmacy

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[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

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[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

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[Chelsea Clinton]

I mean, you mentioned water. I know that you posted one of the photos from the Artemis 2 mission on Instagram that got some attention where it was really just a photo of the Pacific Ocean and people I think were surprised that we do have as much water as we do. What do you want people to know about the oceans that we may not?

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Yeah, I mean to ask me on a different day, there's always a different one. Well today, today, today like what I really want people to understand is how big a deal the ocean is as part of our climate solutions. We think about how it's impacted, right? It's absorbing all 90% of the heat and you know, 30% of the carbon dioxide that are caused by burning fossil fuels. But the ocean has something like 35% of the climate solutions we need from protecting and restoring those coastal ecosystems, to decarbonizing shipping to offshore renewable energy, to sustainable seafood and eating lower on the food chain. Especially when you think about farming oysters and seaweed and all of these ways we can have great nutrition from the ocean in really low impact ways. So I want people to look to the ocean as not just a victim of climate change and pollution, but also this massive part of our global system, this 70 plus percent of the surface and the vast majority of the livable area volume volumetrically of what's happening on the planet and say like how can we help the ocean? Help us to be really self centered about it so we can make sure that we are continuing to have a habitable planet in climate terms.

[Chelsea Clinton]

I love the Billion Oyster Project here in New York City, which I certainly think is one of those, you know, what advice or suggestions would you have for anyone listening who Wants to be a smarter kind of climate informed consumer when they're thinking about what they eat.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

I mean, I think eat lower on the food chain is the simplest answer. Oysters are filter feeders. Seaweed obviously is a plant. I mean, you're not. And when we're farming those things in the ocean and mussels and scallops, et cetera, that are all filter feeders, you don't have to use fresh water, you don't have to use fertilizer. There's no pesticides involved. Right. Land for arable land for farming is limited. So you're not dealing with any of that. So I would encourage people to eat more oysters, which is kind of like the most luxurious climate solution you can indulge in. But, you know, and the same when it comes to fish eating smaller fish, eating sardines and anchovies instead of tuna and swordfish. They're also much healthier because they bioaccumulate fewer toxins like mercury. And actually the surprising one, because it's, I believe, still the most popular seafood in America, is that I don't think we should really be eating shrimp. It's caught in these small mesh nets, usually like dragged over the seafloor. Nets that can be as large as a football field that obviously catch everything in their path. There's a huge amount of waste. Up to 90% of what's caught can be thrown back dead in some cases. So we can have our shrimp cocktail. There are more sustainable ways to do that. But the ecosystem impacts as well as the disruption, the waste of other species are things that I just don't think it's worth it. If you're eating more sustainable shrimp from other sources, you'll notice because it will be much more expensive if it's like trap caught, for example.

[Chelsea Clinton]

I want to spend a little time talking about some of the other solutions that I know you're passionate about. I am curious, kind of what advice you have for people who, you know, in their own homes or with their cars, you know, want to know how much should they worry about having a gas stove or not? How much should they worry about, you know, having a hybrid or electric car or not? Like, what do you think people should really kind of orient kind of their concern attention and if they have the resources, the dollars on making a change.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned gas stoves in particular because that's also a public health issue. Indoor air quality in places that have gas appliances can be really bad, which is especially risky for children with asthma and Other respiratory issues. So if you can afford to switch to an induction stove and get those gas lines capped, I would recommend doing that. Induction stoves have really improved in the technology in the last decade. They're great, they're amazing. Like, lots of famous chefs are using them and loving it. And it's really too bad that the Republican Congress cut all of the tax credits from the Inflation Reduction act, that we're helping people afford to make this transition to induction stoves, to just insulating their homes better, to making their windows less drafty, insulating their attics, to $7,500 to help them buy an electric car if they were ready to make that switch. I mean, I got solar panels because there was a 30% tax credit, so I could afford it. And so that's the role of government to help speed this transition. Can't be overstated. And so having that as a major setback is really, really frustrating because obviously dealing with climate change is a race against the clock. But I think what people don't think about often enough as far as their home impact or household impact, is how every dollar we spend is a vote for the future that we want to live in. And for many people who have any savings for retirement or investments, often that money is in a fund that has a significant portion of fossil fuels. And so it's really important for people to look at their investment portfolios and divest from fossil fuels because that could be a bigger negative impact than anything else. You're doing positive in terms of eating a plant based diet and shifting to electrification, et cetera, because you're investing in drilling for more oil and gas and building more pipelines. And it's kind of like a pain in the butt to figure out where you want to move your money, but then you're done forever. And like, that's great, you know, So I want people to think about that, but also just to think beyond your household.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Right?

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

If we spend all of our time and energy obsessing over our individual personal carbon footprint, then we lose the ability to have the energy and minutes to spend on, say, like, are we investing in bike lanes and municipal composting? What are the building codes we're putting into place? Are green roofs allowed? Like, we already know how to do this stuff. We don't need to wait for some new technology. We know how to electrify transportation, we know how to green our buildings, we know how to shift to renewable energy. We know how to protect and restore ecosystems and grow our food in better ways. Right. It's not like there's something we have to wait for that's a big unknown. We could just do all that stuff now in a way that could also be delightful. Like, we started this conversation talking about climate dance parties in aquariums, right? Like, how can we do this in a way that's interesting, that's fun? I use this framework that I call a Climate Action Venn diagram. Right. So it's.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Yes. I wanted to ask you about this.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Oh, great.

[Chelsea Clinton]

So talk to us about this.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

So it's super simple. Three circles overlapping. The first one is, what are you good at? So what are your skills, your resources, your networks? Like, what is it that you specifically can bring to the table? What do you have to offer? And then the second circle is like, what is the work that needs doing? So what are the specific climate and justice solutions you want to work on? Is it greening schools? Is it electrifying transportation? Is it advocating for wind energy? Is it electing politicians who are actually going to prioritize this? There are hundreds of options. And for that, I encourage people to look at this incredible nonprofit called Project Drawdown.

[Chelsea Clinton]

I love Project Drawdown.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Good, you're on to the game here. So they have, like, all these incredible scientists, researchers, experts doing the quantitative, like, which climate solutions matter the most? Where should we focus our energy? It's from them that I learned, for example, that food waste is a huge climate problem, and that's something we can all be part of solving at different scales in our lives, for example.

[Chelsea Clinton]

So, and I want to give young people real credit here because so many of the most impactful food waste amelioration programs have really been driven by young people, often through their schools, through their universities, through their faith communities, from kids and adolescents.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Yeah. And that mixing of reducing food waste with composting, obviously, is like a great one, too, which we're working on here

[Chelsea Clinton]

in New York City.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

We love that. I remember when I got my brown bin, I was like, let's go. So the first circle, what are you good at? The second circle, what work needs doing? And then the third circle is, what brings you joy? What are these sources of satisfaction and delight that will keep you in this work and finding each of us our way to that sweet spot in the center of those three circles, the climate actions that we specifically can take. So looking beyond the generic list of things everyone can do to make their, you know, as a good, you know, citizen advocate, lowering our impact on the planet individually and as a household, yes, all those things. Vote, protest, donate, spread the word, lower your carbon Footprint. I do it, you should do it. But if that's all we do, we're just like not bringing our A game. We're not leveraging our superpowers, which is exactly what this moment calls for. So that's what I encourage people to think about. Like, actually bust out your colored pencils and write it down.

[Chelsea Clinton]

I love that you've talked so much about joy and delight. I think it is a good reminder to all of us, as you said at the beginning of the conversation, you know, that we can take the work seriously and not ourselves seriously.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

To quote Liz Plank yet again, she's brought us competency porn and also whimsy maxing, which is, I feel like something we could lean into.

[Chelsea Clinton]

I've never heard that. I love that.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Why not? Like, I think this take climate seriously, but don't take yourself seriously really has got to be a part of of the way forward here.

[Julia Louis Dreyfus]

Hey, it's Julia Louis Dreyfus from wiser than me, etc. Just popping in with a little reality check. Food waste shouldn't exist. There is no reason that our leftovers should end up in a landfill. But that's the final destination for about a third of the food we grow. Our ancestors would be confused. They use their food scraps as compost or as animal feed, or in weird soups. All the stuff we did before garbage was invented. But composting is hard work. Living with a bucket of rotten food on your counter is gross. Most food goes in the trash because it's easy. And these days, we'll take any easy we can get. But now there's something easier. Drop your scraps in a mill food recycler. It looks like a kitchen bin and an iPhone had a baby. It takes nearly anything, even meat and bones. It works automatically. You can keep filling it for weeks and it never smells. When you finally empty it, you've got these nutrient rich grounds. Use them in your garden, pour them in your green bin, or have mill get them to a small farm so the food you don't eat can help grow the food you do. Just like it should be. It's why I own a mill, why I invest in mill, and why I'm still obsessed with my mill. If you want to get obsessed too, go to mill.com wiser to get $75 off. That's mill.com wiser for $75 off.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Before we go to our last segment called Fact or Fiction, where I'll throw out some different claims and you'll tell us whether they're fact. Or fiction or add some nuance. I do want to talk to you briefly about pl, because we've talked a lot on this podcast about plastics and microplastics in particular. I think there's, you know, at least some awareness about kind of the huge floating island of plastics like in the Pacific Ocean. What do you think people really need to understand about plastics as both a kind of threat to the environment, as an aggravator of climate change, and also to our own health and well being?

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Yeah, it seems obvious once you say it, but sometimes it's easy to forget that plastics are made from fossil fuels.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Yeah.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

And as, for example, we switch to renewable energy, electric cars, heat pumps, et cetera. And there's less demand for oil and gas. The fossil fuel companies are pushing more plastic production. This petrochemical facility is coming up next to oil refineries. They've got to sell it to us in some form. And so if we're not putting it in our cars, they want it to go into package packaging, et cetera. And so there is a really tight link there that's worth pointing out. There is a completely bonkers amount of plastic that is ending up in our oceans and getting integrated into the food web, which is deeply concerning and also has potentially impacts for human health as we're eating. But the thing that is actually not quite true is that there's this floating island of plastic trash, this great Pacific Garbage Patch, as it's called. I think this was like really big in the news maybe a decade ago. Like, it's the size of Texas, this floating island. You can see it from space, and it's actually most of the pieces are smaller than, like your pinky fingernail. And a lot of it is not at the surface. It's a meter or so below the surface. But it is this high density of plastic bits that's accumulated with ocean currents, with gyres. And the problem is it's really, really hard to clean up up, because if you take out the plastic, you take out all the living things as well. And so what we really need to do is the upstream literal solution of preventing all this plastic from running down our rivers into the sea in the first place. That's a much easier place to intervene in that problem than trying to pick it out of the ocean.

[Chelsea Clinton]

And so you would say to people, just try to use less plastic.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Well, yes, but part of the challenge also is that this is not an evenly distributed problem. We know that a lot of the plastic that ends up in the ocean is actually coming from Countries where they do not have the waste management infrastructure to handle all of the products that are being shoved into their economy with all this plastic packaging. Right. Places where until the last 20 years they were wrapping to go food in banana leaves suddenly have like tons and tons of plastic and no infrastructure to handle it. So it is a lot of countries in Southeast Asia in particular who have been inundated with all this plastics, and that's ending up polluting rivers and ending up in the ocean. So there are conservation groups working on intervening in that part of the problem. But I think a lot of the blame, honestly, by corporations and the executives making the decisions about packaging deserve a significant amount of the blame for this. Right. We're told that we as consumers are creating the demand, but like, a lot of us were never asking for this stuff. Right. You may want, for example, to buy a computer mouse or a pair of scissors, but you didn't ask to buy, like, the five layers of plastic packaging that are like, impossible to open. Right. So we often are not given the choice of whether or not you want something with plastic. Do you want plastic utensils with your to go order or not? It was maybe two years ago now, the state of California sued Exxon, maybe for false advertising, for pretending that recycling was the answer to plastic issues. Right. We are all familiar with that icon with the three arrows in a triangle on the bottom of different containers, the number in the middle. Yes. And the assumption is that that symbol means that the thing is recyclable.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Yes. Whether as a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

And the answer is that it actually just is a symbol for what type of plastic it is. And many types of plastic are not recyclable in many different places. And it's just the most obscene example of greenwashing I can think of that we've all been trained to think if I just recycle a little harder, like that will solve this whole problem. When really the issue is all this stuff being created with no infrastructure for truly recycling it, like turning it into a new useful thing and companies getting away with making that our fault, even though we didn't create this and government not regulating it. I mean, Coca Cola, for example, you could consider them like a plastic bottle company. It's mostly like water or sugar water that they're selling. The thing that they're really making is plastic bottles. And so what is the responsibility of a company like that who's creating all this waste when there's no infrastructure really to manage that?

[Chelsea Clinton]

Yes. Reduce, reuse, recycle, is important.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

And refuse and repair my other two

[Chelsea Clinton]

favorite R's, but not enough. All right, well, we end each episode with a fact or fiction segment. So I'm going to throw out some claims and you're going to tell me whether they're fact or fiction. The first one I have to start with because this is something we talk a lot about in our family with our kids. We've had a pretty cold and snowy winter this year, and an increase in cold snaps is one of the many expressions of climate change. Fact or fiction?

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Fact. It's just more extreme weather in every direction, basically. And so for the winter, this is not my area of expertise, but shift in the jet stream and air currents towards the poles. Those air currents can get wobblier with climate change and lead to all sorts of different ripple effects. It's also really important to know that warmer air holds more water, so we can actually have more rain, more precipitation in general because of a warming planet, and that the global warming term still holds, even if some places have a col. So, for example, really cold in the Northeast this winter. Lots of snow. West coast, like, basically no snow. And those extremes are both fueled by climate change.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Climate change is changing our ocean currents.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Yeah, this one's, like, big and scary. So basically, saltier water is denser, it's heavier. And if you don't have colder, denser, saltier water sinking to drive that current, it can slow down. So as water warms and as it gets less salty because ice is melting, we're starting to see that current slowdown. And that's what really moves heat around. Right. That's the reason that you that Scotland doesn't have cold winters, even though it's so far north, because these currents are bringing warm water further north than it would otherwise get.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Roughly 50% of the oxygen in our air comes from photosynthesis in the ocean.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Yes, this is fact. Although it's a little bit tricky to say exactly what the percent is.

[Chelsea Clinton]

A lot, A lot.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Phytoplankton is woefully underappreciated. These, like, tiny little plants in the ocean that are just tell us more about phytoplankton. They're just doing photosynthesis. They're just, you know, hanging out, zipping around, making photons into sugar and being the base of the entire food web in the ocean. Phytoplankton, and then zooplankton, the little tiny critters that eat the phytoplankton and then the little fish that eat the zooplankton. That eat the phytoplankton and it all goes from there up to sharks. So they are super, super, super important. So thank you, ocean, for keeping us oxygenated.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Thank you, ocean. This is one that I hear a lot, particularly from maybe people who don't have the same scientific training, shall we say, that you do, which is that animals, including humans, will always be able to adapt to climate change.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

I think there's a limit when fires are burning down our homes. Like we can move, but we have lost that place. Right. We can rebuild. But A, there's probably a lot of toxins on that land now, and B, we have to think about whether that makes sense to continue to rebuild in the same places. There's estimates for the US that something like 13 million Americans will have to move over the next few decades because of sea level rise alone. That number globally is hundreds of millions. There are actually limits to how hot a temperature the human body can handle before we get, get heat stroke and potentially even die. And that we are pushing those limits of what the body can handle in more and more places of the world. Places where you're seeing temperatures 120, 130 degrees for prolonged days, weeks, if you don't have access to air conditioning, that's extremely, extremely dangerous.

[Chelsea Clinton]

I have to ask this for our family. Seaweed tastes good and it's good for us.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Yes. Nuance. You need to eat it grown from clean water because it's absorbing whatever's in the water there.

[Chelsea Clinton]

It's a good nuance. All right. Two of my three kids like seaweed. I'll use that to try to get the third on board, last one, which I know we talked about, but I want to give you the chance to expound on further if you want, particularly given your recent book. We already know what we need to do to address and arguably even solve climate change. Fact or fiction?

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

We have the solutions we need. Yeah, there are exceptions to that. Of course. There's room for more innovation. Air travel is one example. Like, we don't really know how to do large scale air travel without fossil fuels. So we gotta keep working on that. And also, you know, maybe stop flying everywhere all the time. But in general, yeah, we know what to do. Solar panels, electric cars, protecting all the photosynthesis that's happening in different ecosystems, not electing climate deniers, all that stuff. It's super straightforward. It really is a matter of how quickly and how justly we're going to make this transition. And especially it's helpful for people to understand that the economic case for this transition is now so strong, like Texas isn't a leader in wind and solar energy because they're just a bunch of liberal hippies running around trying to save the planet. It makes a lot of money. Right. And so that wasn't true 20, 30 years ago. Solar panels were much more expensive. And now that the cost has come down for a lot of those things, it actually is the cheaper option in most scenarios to use renewable energy. And so making sure we don't have a government that is forcing coal plants stay open, for example, in one of the recent absurdities, is a really important part to making sure that can happen. Something like 90% of the new energy that came onto the grid in the last few years was renewable. So that is the direction we're going in. It's just a matter of how quickly we're going to be able to make the energy transition in particular. But I always want to give a shout out to the very fundamental solution of protecting and restoring ecosystems that are, you know, something like 30% of the climate solution that we need right there.

[Chelsea Clinton]

And this brings us back to where we started, ensuring that we're protecting our precious natural resources here in the United States, especially our spectacular and wondrous national forests, and ensuring that we're continuing to support researchers to help us better understand our world today and to ensure that it is inhabitable and sustainable and a source of joy, to use one of your words, well into the future.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Absolutely. And zooming out on that globally, just the importance of stopping deforestation as one of the major solutions to climate change. It's something that was talked about a lot when we were kids, like saving the Amazon.

[Chelsea Clinton]

That's true.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

We kind of stopped talking about that. But it remains absolutely critical to the carbon cycle, the water cycle on this planet. And that's what Project Drawdown calls an emergency break to stopping the climate crisis from accelerating further. So just shout out to photosynthesis.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Shout out to photosynthesis every day. Photosynthesis in the ocean, all the way in the Ocean, everywhere. Ayanna. Dr. Johnson, thank you for Chelsea, Dr. Clinton, thank you educating us today and importantly, helping us feel optimistic. There is a lot of work to do. The future, if we don't do that work can be quite scary. But hopefully we're empowered by knowing if we do do that work, if we get it all right, a lot of things are possible.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

What if we get it right?

[Chelsea Clinton]

What if we get it right?

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

Worth considering.

[Chelsea Clinton]

Worth more than considering. Ayanna, thank you just so much for your time. Today.

[Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson]

My pleasure. Thank you.

[Chelsea Clinton]

You can follow Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson at ayannaeliza on Instagram. Her book is called what if We Get Visions of Climate Futures? Thanks for listening. Talk to you next week. That Can't Be True is a production of Limonada Media and the Clinton Foundation. The show is produced by Katherine Barnes, mix and sound design by Johnny Vince Evans. Kristin Lepore is Senior Director of New Content and Jackie Danziger is VP of Narrative and Production. Maggie Kralshore is our Managing Director, Director of Partnerships. Executive producers are Jessica Cordova Kramer, Stephanie Whittles, Wax and me, Chelsea Clinton. Special thanks to Erica Goodmanson, Sarah Horowitz, Francesca Ernst Kahn, Caroline Lewis, Sage Falter, Barry Lurie Westerberg, Emily Young and the entire team at the Clinton Foundation. You can help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. And if you can think of someone who might benefit from today today's episode, please go ahead and share it with them. There's more of that can't Be true with Lemonada. Premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content when you subscribe on Apple Podcasts. You can also listen ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership.