![]() Cold calculationsĬonsider refrigerant management, the book’s No. "Drawdown’s" aggregate bottom line is shockingly affordable: When you total up the net first costs and subtract the net operating costs for all 80 solutions, the net operating savings add up to $74 trillion over 30 years. Also included for each is its projected savings in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and the solution’s total financial cost - the amount of money needed to purchase, install and operate it over 30 years - and its net cost or benefit - how much money would be required to implement the solution compared to the cost of repeating business as usual. To qualify for inclusion, a solution must have proven to reduce energy use through efficiency, material reduction or resource productivity replace existing energy sources with renewable energy or sequester carbon in soils, plants or kelp through regenerative farming, grazing, ocean and forest practices.Įach solution is ranked by cost-effectiveness, speed to implementation and societal benefit. The 80 solutions that make up the bulk of the book are grouped into seven buckets: energy food women and girls building and cities land use transport and materials. The new book aims to do just that: provide the metrics for the solutions needed to solve the climate crisis. That article led Hawken to ask, "Why aren’t we doing the math on the solutions?" as he told me in 2014. His article offered a sobering arithmetical analysis underscoring "our almost-but-not-quite-finally hopeless" global predicament. While its roots date to the early 2000s, the project's inspiration came in large measure from a 2012 Rolling Stone article by activist Bill McKibben, "Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math" - "three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe," as McKibben put it. Two and a half years ago, as the project got under way, I provided some context for Project Drawdown, the nonprofit created by Hawken to produce the book. Many, if not most, of these solutions can be undertaken with little or no new laws or policy, and can be financed profitably by companies and capital markets. Moreover, many, if not most, of the solutions can be undertaken with little or no new laws or policy, and can be financed profitably by companies and capital markets.Īt minimum, "Drawdown" is likely the most hopeful thing you'll ever read about our ability to take on global warming. The book, along with an accompanying website, may be the first to provide the insight and inspiration, backed by empirical research and data, that could enable companies, governments and citizens to attack the climate problem in a holistic and aggressive way. Hawken is quick to point out that the book’s seemingly brash subtitle is a bit tongue in cheek: this is the only "comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming," he said. ![]() The book contains 80 solutions - "techniques and practices" - that are ready today, and 20 additional "coming attractions" - innovations just over the horizon - that collectively can draw down atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases in order to solve, not just slow, climate change by avoiding emissions or sequestering carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere. (Full disclosure: I played a very small unpaid role in reviewing parts of the manuscript, and am included among the 120 or so advisors listed in the book.) "Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming" (Penguin Books), was edited by the author and entrepreneur Paul Hawken along with a self-described "coalition" of research fellows, writers and advisors. This week marks the publication of an ambitious new book with the audacious goal of showing how to reverse the warming of the planet through a myriad of innovations, many of them led by business for profit. ![]()
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