Climate Dance Party?!
A joyful celebration of the paperback release of Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s book: What If We Get It Right?
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and her new paperback book. Credit: www.getitright.earth
Have you ever heard of a climate dance party? Neither had we, until we attended the celebration of the paperback release of Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s New York Times bestselling book, What If We Get It Right?, at the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum, on April 25.
First of all, this book is phenomenal. It’s thoughtful, hopeful, energizing, and honestly hard to put down. Even more exciting, it served as one of the inspirations behind this year’s LA Climate Week. The book is built around conversations with experts imagining possible climate futures, woven together with essays, poetry, artwork, and practical ideas for change. Reading it feels a bit like listening to a beautifully curated series of podcasts - which makes sense if you know Ayana’s earlier work, including How to Save a Planet and What If We Get It Right?.
The evening itself was part climate gathering, part museum night, part dance party. Guests explored the museum beneath towering mammoths and mastodons, listened to a special conversation and book signing with Dr. Johnson, connected with local environmental nonprofits, and danced to live DJ sets surrounded by prehistoric giants.
One of our favorite moments of the night was the Climate Solutions Costume Awards. While we were admittedly too shy to participate ourselves, other guests fully embraced the challenge. We spotted “Compost” and “Recycle” costumes twirling across the dance floor - but the crowd favorite of the night was undoubtedly “Corporate Greed,” which took home first prize.
The whole evening felt refreshingly different: joyful, creative, community-centered, and hopeful. A reminder that climate conversations do not always have to happen through doom and despair; sometimes they can happen through music, imagination, books, dancing, and people coming together under giant Ice Age animals.
