Champion Stories: Emily Johnston

Meet Emily Johnston.

Emily is Vice President of Impact and Engagement at United Way of Olmsted County—a nonprofit located in Rochester, Minnesota. United Way fights for the health education and financial stability of every person in the Olmsted County community. As VP of Impact and Engagement, Emily sets and executes United Way’s community change strategies. While Emily’s current position doesn’t explicitly deal with climate change, Emily possesses a doctoral degree in women’s studies and American literature, with a focus on environmental literature. Through this degree, Emily acquired extensive knowledge in how we tell stories about our relationships with the environment and the link between environmental and bodily harm. She brought her storytelling knowledge and nonprofit expertise to the Healthy Lives and Climate Equity Workgroup that helped shape Minnesota’s Climate Action Framework.

How does your work deal with climate and health, specifically as we see it occur in Minnesota?

Emily: While we aren’t directly addressing climate change at United Way, we understand that climate change is impacting people in our community. We know that climate change disproportionately impacts people who are already experiencing barriers to good health and healthcare. As such, it is squarely within our mission and capabilities to make a difference when it comes to how people get access to health care. We’re looking at how we can help in a way that centers those who are most marginalized—those who are impacted by poor health or social determinants of health. We’re looking at how we include those who are typically shut out of decision-making processes. Climate and health work is squarely baked into our work. Furthermore, the invitation to participate in the Healthy Lives and Climate Equity Workgroup has been a good window into thinking and talking explicitly about what our role in the climate crisis is. How do we talk about climate in our communities? What is our role in thinking about how climate change impacts personal and community health?

How do you promote environmental justice and health equity in your work?

Emily: Health equity is core to our work and analyses of how people experience life in our communities. It’s critical to understanding the relationship between educational opportunity or individual and familial financial stability and personal and community health. We believe that communities hold the solutions to the problems that they face. As for environmental justice, one of its foundational principles is the idea that individuals have a right to political and economic self-determination. This idea is core to our work. One of the ways in which we promote healthy communities in Olmsted County is through supporting our nonprofit ecosystem, particularly culturally specific organizations and grassroots organizations with deep community ties. We know that these organizations are best situated to respond flexibly to problems as they arise and build people’s sense of political efficacy. .

Why is it important for nonprofits, particularly those not in climate or health, to integrate climate change into their work?

Emily: I hope we can all recognize that climate change is an existential threat to our lives, our futures, and our communities. What is rare about climate change is that it reveals the interconnectedness of what sometimes seem like disparate issues: the environment, human health, urban planning, wage stagnation and corporate irresponsibility, housing, Native sovereignty, the health of our democracy, etc. All of these things, and more, are woven into the broader issue of climate justice. You can’t work on any one of these issues and not have your work be impacted by climate change. If you are working towards any of these and not thinking about climate, that’s a missed opportunity.

What is something impactful that those within a nonprofit can do to protect people’s health in the face of the climate crisis?

Emily: For me, it’s all about collaboration in an ecosystem of different types of organizations. What you and I are working on, they are interconnected. One thing organizations can do to help protect people’s health is to learn how to think collaboratively across issues, programs, and services that may not seem immediately linked. This approach gives us an opportunity to develop more robust, nuanced understandings of the issues we work on. For instance, if you work on food, apply the lens of climate to understand how our food systems and climate change are interconnected. Our work is always better when we are thinking about what we do in relation to what others are doing. We know that people experience their lives this way. As service providers or nonprofits, we should think of ourselves as part of an ecosystem rather than an isolated organization.

How has climate change impacted you, or your community, personally?

Emily: I have a three-and-a-half-year-old and she has asthma and severe food allergies. There’s some research indicating that the increase in prevalence in food allergies may be driven in part by climate change. While I may not see climate change impacting her health directly, knowing that the climate crisis impacts kids and families all around the world is frightening. As a parent, I have this sense of anxiety that my time horizon has changed. What am I leaving her?

How can those without public health experience help highlight climate change as a public health crisis?

Emily: Recognize that climate change affects every person. It also affects every business and sector. So, tell a story that motivates the people in your life. If you’re an organization that means asking: what do my stakeholders care about? Is it national security and energy independence or the costs of providing healthcare, disaster insurance, and cooling systems for buildings? Whatever motivates you or your stakeholders should be the basis of your climate story. For people whose work doesn’t directly relate to climate change, as is true for me, the invitation to participate in conversations around climate generates new ways of thinking. I invite anyone to think about how they can connect in whatever role they have. It’s critical that we talk to people in our life about climate. Build a coalition of people who together can make a difference.

What are some of the biggest climate and health challenges right now?

Emily: I think one of the biggest challenges for us is how do we talk about climate change in ways that encourage people to take action? How do we convey a sense of urgency without encouraging people to succumb to despair? There’s a lot of research that shows that the time horizon of a problem impacts how well people can internalize stories. This presents a really particular challenge for activists, governments, and other entities that want to move people towards solutions. One of the biggest challenges is how do we build public understanding and will? We can do this. We can move the needle on climate action together. People can connect to climate change through talking about climate and health in their daily lives. It may seem really abstract in Minnesota to say sea levels are rising, but if we talk about increased heat in the middle of summer or flooding in Minnesotan communities, people can better relate. We have to frame climate change in terms of how it impacts people’s lives today. For instance, do you want to see more or less heat and flooding? Putting an immediate face to the climate crisis is core.

On the flip side, is there anything giving you hope for the future of climate and health?

Emily: Participating in the Healthy Lives and Climate Equity Workgroup gave me hope. I really appreciated the state’s leadership on climate change even with all of the other urgent things going on in our world. It’s critical to not let the urgent crowd out the important. It was really cool to see all of the people who participated—foundations, community organizers, hospital systems, and more. People were coming together to talk about climate and health and how we approach this work across the entire state. That gave me a lot of hope.

The opinions expressed in these stories are the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of MDH.