Science & Society: Visions of Climate Futures

When it comes to climate change, there’s an important question we don’t ask often enough: What if we get it right? Let’s flip the apocalyptic script. To joyously explore this topic, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson will host in conversation Jade Begay, Indigenous rights and climate policy strategist, and Colette Pichon Battle, attorney and climate justice organizer. Ayana will ask her guests, and you, to envision the world we could build if we charge ahead with the plethora of solutions we have at our fingertips. How the heck can we start these societal transformations and reel climate possibilities into being?

Jade and Colette are among those whose insights are featured in Ayana’s new book, What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures, which has 20 interviews at its heart, directly inspired by the Pioneer Works Science & Society series. This conversation concludes a tryptic of events Ayana has curated at Pioneer Works over the last year starting with the Climate Futurism exhibition, which was followed by its companion Science & Society event featuring MoMA curator Paola Antonelli and solar/salvage punk artist Olalekan Jeyifous.

Magician Nicole Cardoza will open our night, sparking our thoughts on possibility and transformation. Books will be available for sale, hosted by Greenlight Bookstore, and a book signing will follow the conversation.

Delight your taste buds with offerings available for purchase from For All Things Good—a project inspired by a deep passion for Mexican cuisine and culture, and dedicated to perfecting the process of making masa and tortillas using heirloom corn varieties.

Jade Begay of Tesuque Pueblo and the Dine Nation, works at the intersections of climate and environmental-justice policy and Indigenous rights. Jade has worked with Indigenous-led organizations and Tribes from the Amazon to the Arctic to advance Indigenous-led solutions and self-determination through advocacy campaigns, research, storytelling, and narrative strategies. She is currently developing a research project on the impacts of climate change on Native people in the United States.

Colette Pichon Battle is a human rights attorney, a non-profit executive, and a generational native of Bayou Liberty, Louisiana. She serves as the Vision and Initiatives partner for the non-profit Taproot Earth, which she co-founded. Colette spearheads efforts around equitable climate-disaster recovery, migration, community economic development, and energy democracy.

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, policy expert, and writer. She is co-founder of the non-profit think tank Urban Ocean Lab, co-editor of the bestselling climate anthology All We Can Save, and author of What If We Get it Right?: Visions of Climate Futures. She is in love with climate solutions.

This event is supported by the Simons Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology, bridging the two cultures of science and the arts.