Loeb50 Highlight: An oceanographer does a deep dive into cities
By Inga Saffron 2012
The Loeb Fellowship was created in the midst of America’s urban crisis to help develop solutions to the problems facing cities. Back then, it was expected that the answers would come mainly from city planners, architects and people in related fields. But the keynote speaker for the Fellowship’s 50th anniversary weekend, which begins Oct. 6, shows just how much the program has broadened its scope in the last half century.
The opening remarks will be delivered by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a marine biologist who began her career studying the impact of climate change on coral reefs in the Caribbean. As an oceanographer and policy expert, Johnson understands that the fate of cities is inextricably bound up with the future of the oceans. Not only will rising sea levels dramatically reconfigure the geography in dozens of cities, they will create new social justice challenges, she argues.
It’s not surprising that Johnson would connect oceans and cities. She grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., the daughter of parents who hailed from coastal communities. Her father was born in Jamaica. Her mother is from Long Island. During a family vacation in Key West when she was five, Johnson had her first glimpse of a coral reef through the floor of a glass bottom boat. That teaming ecosystem made her immediately think of an underwater city, she told NPR’s Krista Tippett in an interview earlier this year. Like many children entranced by the ocean, Johnson declared she wanted to be a marine biologist.
After completing an undergraduate degree in environmental science at Harvard, she made good on that ambition. At the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, where Johnson earned her doctorate, she studied the effects of warming ocean waters on a vital coral reef near the Jamaican coast.
As part of her research, she became interested in how those changes were affecting people who lived in nearby fishing towns. That led to a series of in-depth interviews with local residents. “I spent a lot of time drinking beer with fishermen,” Johnson joked during her NPR interview. The experience drove home the idea that “ocean conservation is a matter of cultural preservation,” she explained. “As much as I love fish and octopuses and kelp and all these things, it’s really about people.”
In the last few years, Johnson has increasingly focused her practice on policy work. She co-founded the Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank that advocates for environmental justice in coastal communities. She has also become a prolific writer and editor.
What really sets her apart from so many climate activists is her optimism. It’s not that she believes that preventing environmental catastrophe will be easy. Rather, she is convinced that there are do-able and politically palatable steps that we can take now to limit the damage. To help communities develop protective strategies, she co-launched an initiative called the All We Can Save Project. The organization helps communities to set up discussion groups and prepare climate change master plans, much like the community engagement sessions that urban planners run for transit or park projects. Johnson is currently working on a memoir tentatively titled, What if We Get This Right?, which explores similar, solutions-focused approaches.
In many ways, Johnson’s work is a rebuke to the traditional gloom-and-doom narrative that has dominated our climate change discussions.Of course, she says, “we need to stop with the oil and gas pipelines.... but for me, it’s all about how do we build the future that we want to live in.” She argues that we should be strategically refocusing our energies on what we can protect.
Johnson’s remarks, which begin at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 6, will elaborate on what she describes as her practical, get-it-done vision to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Loebs who work in cities can take some comfort in knowing that Johnson’s vocabulary will sound familiar. She may be talking about oceans and science, but expect to hear a lot of references to “spatial planning” and “ocean zoning.”