Can AI aid in climate change? Scientist explores solutions in new book

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, policy expert and conservation strategist who is co-founder of the nonprofit think tank Urban Ocean Lab.

Through essays and interviews, her new book "What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures" looks at the possibilities for the future as we face climate change.

ABC News' Linsey Davis sat down with Johnson to discuss her childhood inspiration for entering her field, the solutions for climate change, AI's possible role in the crisis and the need to find a middle ground between apocalypse and paradise.

ABC NEWS: Envisioning a world outside of today's boundaries. That's a focus in her new book, "What If We Get It Right?" Ayana Elizabeth Johnson writes about the possibilities and transformations that can be achieved when it comes to our climate future. Ayana, thank you so much for joining us.

AYANA ELIZABETH JOHNSON: Thank you for having me.

ABC NEWS: All right. So you talk about growing up in Brooklyn and then a family trip that you took to Florida early on. How did that, how did both ultimately inspire you to write this book?

JOHNSON: So at 5, I learned to swim in the Florida Keys. I saw a coral reef for the first time. And like many kids who see a coral reef and learn to swim, you fall in love with the ocean. And of course, when you fall in love with something, you want to protect it.

So learning that the ocean was threatened because of pollution and the effects of tourism and coastal development and then later climate change, I thought, well, let me see if I can help, especially as the daughter of a Jamaican immigrant thinking about how important healthy coastal ecosystems are culturally and economically. This is not just a thing for tourists to enjoy; it really is the foundation of coastal economies. So that's what started it all.

ABC NEWS: I love that you have that picture from when you were a little girl on that trip.

JOHNSON: I know -- my dad, the little kiddos.

ABC NEWS: So "What If We Get It Right?" is the theme and question -- what are you referring to here?

JOHNSON: Climate change. We have the solutions at our fingertips, right? We could get it right. I don't know if we will. That's why the title is a question mark. But we already know how to switch to clean energy.

We know how to make our buildings more efficient, to green our infrastructure. We know how to farm in ways that make more sense and improve our food system. We know how to do transportation that's based on electricity and not fossil fuels, right? We know how to protect and restore ecosystems.

Those are the solutions we need. It's just a matter of how quickly we're going to implement them, how quickly we can unlock the cultural changes and the political will that will let us move forward with the solutions that we have already.

ABC NEWS: You also talked to Microsoft's AI CEO [Mustafa Suleyman], and many people talk about artificial intelligence in terms of, you know, the evil robots that are going to ultimately take over our planet and also maybe cause a reduction in jobs. But do you think that AI could possibly be positive when it comes to solving climate change?

JOHNSON: Yeah. I mean, I think the issue is the AI is here, right? There's no chance of us sort of putting that cat back into the bag. So it's a matter of exactly how we could use it as part of climate solutions.

And Mustafa Suleyman, who's interviewed in this book, you'll see we have sort of a rousing debate about what we think the role should be. We have differing opinions there, but it certainly could be used to improve energy efficiency in some ways on the one hand. But on the other hand, AI is extremely energy intensive and water intensive itself, right?

So I don't think AI is needed to address the climate crisis, but since we have it, it's certainly worth thinking through how it could best be applied.

ABC NEWS: With regard to the politics of it, you write at one point: "No matter who's in office, keep pushing, pry open windows of opportunity." What ultimately gives you hope that humans will be able to kind of turn the tide on climate change?

JOHNSON: Well, the open secret is I'm not actually an optimist. I'm a realist. I'm a scientist, right? I know, though, that there are many different possible futures. So often this conversation is presented as apocalypse being like the option or solving climate change and paradise being the alternative. And actually, it's anything in-between.

And what I care about is that it's a huge difference whether we get to 80% of the solution or 60% or 40%. We're talking about hundreds of millions of lives hanging in the balance and quality of life for all of us.

When we're thinking about the heat waves, the wildfires, the floods, the sea level rise, the droughts, the food insecurity, the conflicts that are accelerated by all of this. The Department of Defense calls climate change a threat multiplier, right? That's what we're talking about here. So even if we don't get everything right, we should still try to get it as right as possible.

ABC NEWS: Ayana, we thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate your insight. Want to let our viewers know "What If We Get It Right?" is now available wherever books are sold.