WHAT IF WE GET IT RIGHT?

As we know, facts are not enough to win on climate — we need the right messages and the right messengers. So for this episode, we’re taking a step back to talk about climate communication with one of the very best in the biz, Jamie Henn. We cover everything from naming the villains, TikTok against Arctic drilling, Beyoncé as a clean energy acronym, and the under-leveraged power of grandkids.
Jamie is a climate organizer, activist, and ace communications strategist — and Bill’s former student! He has been a driving force behind some of the most successful climate campaigns of the last decade, including the fight against the Keystone XL pipeline, the People’s Climate March, the fossil fuel divestment movement, the ExxonKnew campaign, the Global Climate Strikes, and more.
Now, Jamie is founder and executive director of Fossil Free Media, a nonprofit communications lab that supports the movement to end fossil fuels and make polluters pay.
Bonus: Listen to the end for Bill’s reactions to the various clean energy mascot ideas you all submitted for our earlier “Don’t mess with solar” episode with Tom Mattzie.
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CALLS TO ACTION ✅
Phone banking ☎️ w/ Environmental Voter Project
If you don’t know what to do with your election/democracy anxiety, join us for phone banking! Every Wednesday at 12p ET until Election Day (or many other shifts available). RSVP: environmentalvoter.org/AEJ
11.2 Million Vote Project 🗳️ w/ Patagonia
Patagonia launched a project to get the 11.2 million environmentalists who sat out the 2024 election to actually vote this time around. (Data per Environmental Voter Project.) They’ve made it easy to contact your unlikely-to-vote friends and family and get them the info they need to cast their ballots. Do it here: patagonia.org/elections
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Mentioned in this episode:
* Bob Hope (ye olde talk show host) was paid by the fossil fuel industry to popularize the slogan “now we’re cooking with gas.” (Factcheck: In the episode I said it was Johnny Carson, oops.)
* Over 90% of the new electricity generation in the US in 2025 came from solar, wind, and batteries storage.
* 350.org
* Fossil Free Media
* Sun Day
* Make Polluters Pay: Campaign to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate damages. (Instagram: @PollutersPay)
* Lead Locally: Helping elect local climate champions
* Environmental Voter Project: Getting environmentalists to vote
Credits: This episode was produced by Remoy Philip and me (Ayana), with support from Jenisha Shrestha. Original music by Emma Munger. Graphic design by Holly Griffin of Design Hungry, and social media support from Feeling Seen Studio.
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Enjoying the show? Share it around, spread the word! And review 🌟 and follow What If We Get It Right? on your platform of choice — that helps more people find us and these timely conversations.
Thank you for listening. 💛



Get full access to WHAT IF WE GET IT RIGHT? at ayanaelizabeth.substack.com/subscribe

This episode is a double feature, recorded live during NYC Climate Week in a Patagonia store. It’s about fighting to protect our public lands, leveraging outdoor athletes as effective advocates, and (once again) getting environmentalists to vote. Plus, the scoop on Patagonia’s get-out-the-vote project that will give you a $100 incentive for encouraging friends to vote. Today’s episode features:
Erin Sprague, CEO of the non-profit Protect our Winters (POW). POW’s mission: “turn passionate outdoor people into climate advocates, working together to protect a future with clean air, clean water and a healthy planet.”
Corley Kenna, the chief impact and communications officer at Patagonia, is responsible for advancing the company’s policy and advocacy priorities. (Disclosure: I proudly serve on Patagonia’s board of directors.)
Patagonia and Protect Our Winters have been collaborating for years to protect public lands and rally the outdoor industry — which in 2024 generated $1.3 trillion in economic value and supported 5.2 million jobs. It’s always a thrill to see pro-Earth groups flex their electoral power.
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Mentioned in this episode
* The Trump administration announced plans to dramatically shrink the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments (Chaser: Patagonia: We’re Suing to Protect Public Lands)
* Fossil fuel companies spent over $400 million on the last election.
* According to the Outdoor Industry Association, nearly 70% of outdoor participants were White, while only 10.3% were Black and 13.4% Hispanic. The majority of participants are women, at 53.4% — the highest ever.
* The outdoor industry—in 2024 generated $1.3 trillion in economic value for the outdoor industry and 5.2 million jobs.
* Brands for Public Lands
* 85% of Montanans polled said they would support a ban on the sale or transfer of public land.
* Protect Our Winter’s Stoke the Vote Campaign
* 1% for the Planet - businesses contributing 1% of total annual sales to grassroots environmental groups
* Patagonia made a commitment to use 100% organic cotton in 1996.
* Patagonia Action Works — connect with local environmental action groups.
* Time to Vote Campaign — More than 2,000 companies are committed to ensuring people don’t have to choose between earning a paycheck and voting.
* Canyon Woodward and Dirt Road Organizing
* Caroline Gleich, athlete activist
* Patagonia Film: This Is Not A Drill
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Credits: This episode was produced by Remoy Philip and Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, with support from Jenisha Shrestha. Original music is by Emma Munger, graphic design by Holly Griffin of Design Hungry, and social media support from Feeling Seen Studio. Curtis Brewer captured the audio, and Xavier “Invisionary” Edwards took the photos. Special thanks to Alexa Liccardi, Kathleen Welch, and Kevin Ulnger and the whole team at the Patagonia Upper West Side store for hosting us.
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Phone banking ☎️ w/ Environmental Voter Project
While in New York, amidst the crazy schedule of Climate Week events, we still made time to phone bank (me from my bed in my tiny hotel room). Just like this podcast isn’t on video, neither is phone banking — you can do it in your pajamas!
If you don’t know what to do with your election/democracy anxiety, join us! Every Wednesday at 12p ET until Election Day (or many other shifts available). All the cool kids are doing it. 😎 RSVP here: environmentalvoter.org/AEJ
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Enjoying the podcast? Share it around, spread the word! And be sure to review 🌟 and follow What If We Get It Right? — that helps more people find us and these timely conversations.
Thanks for listening. 💛
p.s. If you missed our conversation with Nathaniel Stinnett, founding executive director of Environmental Voter Project, that’s the perfect episode to bop over to next: How the climate movement can build political power 🌎💪🏽 with Nathaniel Stinnett



Get full access to WHAT IF WE GET IT RIGHT? at ayanaelizabeth.substack.com/subscribe

In honor of NYC Climate Week, we’re diving into the climate initiatives happening right here in this city. There is so much going on.
Our guest is Louise Yeung, New York City’s Chief Climate Officer.
We interviewed Louise to give you a real sense of what we actually get when we elect someone who is committed to climate justice. Spoiler: We get a lot of good stuff!
We covered everything from battery-powered food carts, to heat pumps in public housing, to BRT (bus rapid transit, we love it), to social cohesion as a resilience strategy.
We also touched on the fact that Mayor Mamdani, despite being informed and committed, doesn’t really talk about climate very much, and asked Louise if she could help change that.🤞🏽
Louise’s Hot Take 🥵🌎 — Policy-making is an act of love.
We hope this will help motivate you to go all-in for these last six weeks until Election Day.
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Mentioned in this Episode
* NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice
* NYC Gov Press Release: Plan to Lower Subway Platform Temperatures and Harness Thermal Energy in Lower Manhattan
* Mayor Mamdani Announces New York City’s First Bus Shelter With a Cooling Green Roof in Brownsville
* During Superstorm Sandy, although 85% of the wetlands in New York and New Jersey had already been destroyed by development, what little ­remained prevented $625 million of damage.
* Heat stress is the leading cause of weather-related deaths–killing more people than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods combined.
* NY plug-in solar bill aka the SUNNY Act
* NYC Launches Food Vendor Cart Electrification Pilot in Queens
* Investing in resilience before a disaster hits can save $6 to $13 on response and recovery.
* Urban Ocean Lab + NYC Comptroller Office’s policy memo: Social Cohesion as a Climate Strategy: Reflections on Superstorm Sandy
* UOL‘s current work: Leveraging Public Procurement for Climate Action
* One thing inspiring Louise — Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, by Alexis Pauline Gumbs_____
Phone banking ☎️ w/ Environmental Voter Project
We’re growing! In week 2 of our phone banking 52 callers made 19,709 dials, and had a whopping 587 conversations with people who were otherwise unlikely to vote. GO TEAM!
If you don’t know what to do with your election/democracy anxiety, join us! Every Wednesday at 12p ET until Election Day. All the cool kids are doing it. 😎 — Sign up: environmentalvoter.org/AEJ
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Enjoying the show? Share it around, spread the word! And review 🌟 and follow What If We Get It Right? podcast platform — that helps more people find us and these timely conversations.
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Credits: This episode was produced by Remoy Philip and me (Ayana), with support from Jenisha Shrestha. Original music by Emma Munger. Graphic design by Holly Griffin of Design Hungry, and social media support from Feeling Seen Studio.
And thank you for listening. 💛



Get full access to WHAT IF WE GET IT RIGHT? at ayanaelizabeth.substack.com/subscribe

First, happy 2nd birthday to What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures (the book version). Thank you for welcoming it into the world so warmly (NYT bestseller! 10,000+ of you coming to book tour events!) that it continues on in podcast form. 💛✨
If you haven't yet checked it out, find the (massively updated) paperback edition at your local library or bookstore. The 20 interviews it contains with incredible experts (including, of course, our wise Bill McKibben, star of the “Divest and Protest” chapter) are all still very relevant. Alas, we have not gotten it right, yet. But we are not giving up on life on Earth, right?! Right.
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And now for today's bonus episode, a delightful conversation with Stacey Abrams from two years ago. It was recorded during Climate Week 2024, when my book was hot of the presses and we were, likewise, in the run-up to an intensely crucial election. 😵‍💫
Stacey was, at the time, senior counsel to Rewiring America, and thinking deeply about what electrification and the clean energy transition could practically look like — especially in communities of color and especially in the South. Some people are surprised with the depth of her expertise on climate but (1) never underestimate Stacey Abrams, and (2) her college thesis was on environmental justice! She’s not new to this. And she connects the dots between climate and democracy like none other.
Hot tip: Listen to the end if you want to hear us sing our favorite Prince song together 🎶
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Mentioned in this episode:
* More than 47 million people in the U.S. — one in seven — live in coastal cities, and nearly 60% of those residents identify as people of color, compared to 37% nationally.
* Cancer Alley: The eighty-five-mile stretch along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge is nicknamed “Cancer Alley” because of its concentration of more than 200 petrochemical facilities and associated high rates of cancer.
* Sea level rise could displace 410 million people globally, including 13.1 million people in the U.S., by 2100.
* About 40% of the U.S.’s energy-related emissions come from decisions our homes and vehicles.
* If you have a gas stove in a poorly ventilated rental apartment, you face a climate catastrophe in your home.
* Podcast episode with Ari Matusiak, CEO of Rewiring America
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Be a Climate Citizen: If you don’t know what to do with your election anxiety, join me and the Environmental Voter Project to phone bank every Wednesday at 12p ET. ☎️🌎 Bring the homies. RSVP here. As Stacey Abrams says, “I don’t need purity, I need participation.”
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Credits: This episode was produced and edited by Remoy Philip and me (Ayana), with support from Jenisha Shrestha. Original music by Emma Munger. Graphic design by Holly Griffin of Design Hungry, and social media support from Feeling Seen Studio.
BIG thanks to Stacey Abrams and her team, and to event sponsors Grist, Rewiring America, Mother Jones, and the Tishman Environment and Design Center at the New School.
If you’re enjoying our podcast, pass it along. Drop an episode link in your group chats. Follow and review on your platform of choice. Spread the word. And we’ll be back on Tuesday with a new episode.


Get full access to WHAT IF WE GET IT RIGHT? at ayanaelizabeth.substack.com/subscribe

The clean energy industry is getting aggressive, Super PAC style. And, honestly, it’s pretty exciting.
Our guest this episode is Tom Matzzie, founder and CEO of Clean Choice Energy, an energy supplier whose mission is to make clean energy accessible to all. Highly relevant: he’s also a veteran political strategist.
Clean energy entrepreneurs and advocates have largely relied on affordability, efficiency, and environmental upsides to make their case. You know, the facts. But elections aren’t decided on facts alone. They are about power and influence.
Well, now there’s a new super PAC in town: the Invest in Tomorrow Coalition. It’s a pro-clean energy PAC founded in response to right-wing politicians killing the Inflation Reduction Act’s support for the clean energy industry. Their Texas-inspired message? “Don’t mess with solar.”
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Clean energy mascot competition! 🏆
During this conversation, we found ourselves thinking: The clean energy industry needs a mascot. Ayana came up with Freddy the Photon. Bill came up with Sunny Da Riveter. Certainly you can do better. What should it be?
Drop your ideas in our newsletter comments! We will think long and hard about your submissions, and in addition major bragging rights, we’ll send the winner a “don’t mess with solar” t-shirt.
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Mentioned in this episode:
* Invest in Tomorrow Coalition PAC
* Merch for “Don’t Mess With Solar” and “Don’t Mess With Wind”
* Tom’s company: Clean Choice Energy
* Chip Roy,one of the leaders of the House Freedom Caucus, quoted on wanting to kill 90% of all clean energy projects.
* There are more people working at Arby's sandwich shops than there are mining coal left in America.
* Another podcast we recommend: The Nature of With Willow Defebaugh. Each episode, Willow sits down with artists, scientists, and cultural pioneers, from Robin Wall Kimmerer to Esther Perel, to uncover what nature can teach us about creativity, connection, and change. VERY good. Go listen!
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PHONE BANK ☎️🌎 with Environmental Voter Project
Join me every Wednesday until Election Day, from 12 - 1:30p ET. We’re gonna phone bank with EVP — on repeat — to help make sure Earth lovers show up to vote.
Bring your crew. All the cool kids are doing it. Sign up at environmentalvoter.org/AEJ
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Credits: This episode was produced by Remoy Philip and me (Ayana), with support from Jenisha Shrestha. Original music by Emma Munger. Graphic design by Holly Griffin of Design Hungry, and social media support from Feeling Seen Studio.



Get full access to WHAT IF WE GET IT RIGHT? at ayanaelizabeth.substack.com/subscribe