Drawdown: the point when greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere start to decline.
Sounds pie in the sky, right?
It is, a bit. It’s going to take a lot of work across a lot of sectors.
Who are the people behind the project? What is it? From their website :
Project Drawdown is a world-class research organization that reviews, analyses, and identifies the most viable global climate solutions, and shares these findings with the world.
We partner with communities, policy-makers, non-profits, businesses, investors, and philanthropists to identify and deploy science-based, effective climate solutions -- as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible.
As a thought leader and communicator, Project Drawdown is shifting the global conversation about climate change from “doom and gloom” defeatism to one of possibility, opportunity, action, and empowerment.
(from a separate page)
Project Drawdown is a broad coalition of researchers, scientists, graduate students, PhDs, post-docs, policy makers, business leaders, and activists who have come together to map, measure, and model the best available solutions that can cumulatively reverse global warming within the next 30 years.
In 2017, after two years of compiling research with over 200 researchers from across the globe, covering seven major fields, plus coming attractions, the project published Drawdown: the Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warmin g, which ranks climate solutions according to amounts of emissions reduced and expense. Eighty-some solutions are technology and/or policy implementations that are available to us now . Another twenty are labeled ‘coming attractions’ meaning they’re either technology that isn’t ready for mass production or they’re ideas that need more research.
In the fall of 2017, I was privileged to see a talk given by the editor of the book, Paul Hawken at a Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment colloquium. As a result of Paul’s talk and the energy it fostered across faculty, students and the administration, Penn State held the first ever Drawdown conference this past fall, bringing together ~300 researchers, students, and activists across all seven major disciplines. *
What are those major disciplines?
Energy (of course), food and food production systems, women and girls, buildings and cities, land use, transport, and materials. Basically, if you already have something you are passionate about that makes the world a better place for people or animals or ecosystems, chances are you will find a form of it in Drawdown’s contents.
While a goodly proportion of us probably do our best to recycle, reduce our energy usage, reduce food waste, these are individual level actions. By pushing further and making our voices heard at local, state and regional levels will we move closer to broader implementation of drawdown strategies. You can find the ranked list of solutions here .
As a prompt to both individual actions and higher level activism, check out Drawdown’s Ecochallenge , which includes the seven major disciplines and a section on social justice. There’s also a team feature that allows people to form groups and keep track of their actions. We should start some DailyKos groups there!
So, this is a start on my resolution this year. Going forward, I am planning to write on one to two of the ranked solutions per week this year, though I’ll probably start next week with a run-down of Penn State’s Research to Action conference (see links below).
Other links
Short dive: WPSU interview (28 minutes) with Jonathan Foley (Executive Director, Project Drawdown) and Tom Richard (Director, Penn State Institutes on Energy and the Environment). Apologies, this interview does not appear to have a transcript available.
Deep dive: Penn State Research to Action Conference recordings (from Sept. 16-18, 2019). I recommend the short keynote given by Katherine Hayhoe. Embedded in Tuesday’s “Communicating Critical Information in a Polarized Media Environment”; her presentation is the first after the introductions. These recordings should have closed captioning, but having watched a bit with them turned on, they clearly haven’t been curated/proofed.
Indiana Drawdown : I met the young man behind this organization at one of the final day breakout sessions — in six months or so, he had coordinated with numerous organizations and identified many municipalities, companies and organizations across Indiana that were already implementing climate solutions. He funded this by using his own retirement funds. Looks like he hasn’t gotten non-profit status yet, but if you feel moved and have the extra, he could probably use a little change sent his way.
Innovative surfaces for water-harvesting : cool materials research work out of Penn State.
*Disclaimer: I work for Penn State, but I do not work on any Drawdown research projects or conference organization.
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