Over 250 people participated in the research and writing to prepare Drawdown. The Drawdown project listed about 80 strategies that would begin to reverse the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere and begin to reverse global warming. The list includes the most obvious like wind and solar energy and others like changing some agricultural practices. One point that would help change warming is educating girls. When girls get education they tend to marry later and have fewer children. Many of the points listed would not just reduce atmospheric carbon but would be far superior economically to the current practices. Reducing food and water waste would keep more greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere and save millions of dollars as well. Drawdown is not easy reading. There is a chapter for each point, some are more interesting than others and it took a long time to read. Sometimes I could only manage one chapter at a time. I thought reading Drawdown was worth the time and effort. It shows that climate change can be reversed. ( )

Incredible research ranks exactly what we need to do to reverse climate change. Some of it I knew already (the meat industry worldwide is a real killer and we need silvopasture like yesterday) but some was news to me (just dealing with the pollution that comes from refrigerants could really turn this thing around).
Ultimately, however, I was still left feeling hopeless. Because there is not a snowball's chance in hell that the American government is going to try and do even one damn thing on the list. Thanks a lot, baby boomers! You ruined the world and now you get to die first, leaving your grandkids in an apocalyptic hellscape. Way to go, guys. Way to go. ( )

Admittedly, I failed to finish this book. Yet I'm convinced it was filled with a hundred practical recommendations on how man-made climate change impacts could be lessened or reversed in an economical way without forcing us all to change our lifestyles, become vegetarians, or without giving up our motor vehicles, furnaces, or air conditioners.

But as an audiobook user, I was unable to progress through the book at a pace which suited me, being held captive to the pace of the narrator. In the case of this book, I........found....... the .......... pace.......... of .........the..........book........to...........be..........frustratingly.............sloooooooow.

Patience isn't a virtue of mine, and I found myself anxious to get to the next point, and becoming bogged down in the details. The author would present each idea, one at a time, tell you where it ranks compared to other ideas, tell you the total cost of the idea in millions or billions of dollars, tell you the total cost savings of the idea in millions or billions of dollars, explain it, and go on to the next. I'm sure most of the ideas make perfect sense, and can be implemented in a cost saving way, but I'm unsure which governmental body or agency, or business, or organization, will be taking on each challenge to make it happen on a wide enough scale to allow it to make a difference. Perhaps the implementing bodies for his ideas were contained in his final chapters, I just lost patience and never got that far in the book.
( )

The book lists a number of ways we can reduce carbon emmissions and reverse global warming. Very muchnfocused on technical solutions, of which some are not really delivering (increased deforestation in Brazil under Bolsenaro; higher car mileage in cities where companies like Uber are popular). The book also does not talk bout what needs to change in the way we consume (except eatling less meat) and in the current existing social relations. So an interesting list of solutions, but not a lot of depth or broader picture. ( )

Maybe the best title ever. It is what it says - the Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. In it are 100 environmental practices, ranked from 1 to 100 as most impactful. Most take just two pages, include ample descriptions for the noob, and give a summarized breakdown of the numbers. Tons and tons of researchers and contributors worked to make this book and thousands of references, but it's stylized and written to communicate, not overwhelm. In short, it's brilliant, and one of the most hopeful (and needed) projects I know of.

For me, it felt like environmental science 101. Maybe you have, but I hadn't ever heard of Methane Digesters, Grid Flexibility, Silvopasture, or Utility Scale Photovoltics. Each are important for drawing down the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

However, most important were the practical implications of the research. You might, "What can I actually do to reduce global warming?" This book is the "most comprehensive" answer to that question. So, things like adding solar panels, (eventually) trading our gas car for something electric, etc. everyone knows. Now it feels a little more pressing. But in particular, going to a plant based diet was (I believe) #3 or #4 most impactful practices. Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh has said, making the transition to a plant-based diet may be the most effective way an individual can stop climate change. I didn't realize this... and that doesn't even include the other reasons for going vegetarian.

Two others that surprised me were educating girls globally and family planning (#6 & #7), which go together. When we educate girls, we are improving the lives of families. Children are healthier, happier and fewer in number when girls are educated. This is vital!

Drawdown is also a non-profit, who happened to produce this wonderful book. Learn more at drawdown.org.

This is so important and I'm thankful for the work they're doing. ( )

Enlightening for sure.
Optimistic too.
Full of solutions and angles on the biggest problem we face.

Dry to read (it's a report, not a narrative)
And a big question at the end: What now? Who is going to pay and change the law before it's too late? ( )

An inventory of various approaches to reducing carbon emissions and mitigating global warning and climate change: brief introductions to some hundred technologies, adaptations, alternative energy sources, and so on, in many sectors: energy, engineering, construction, transportation, urbanization, agriculture, reducing deforestation, and so on. Very useful, giving a glimpse of the whole vibrant field of positive responses. ( )

Galileo was championing the old established order of thinking established by the Greeks for a millennium and a half. The Greeks theory of the movement of the heavens was overly complicated to make a theory fit the facts. To quote Luigi Pirandello "A fact is like a sack - it won't stand up if it's empty.

Ptolemy and his geocentric model were held in reverence for such a long time but there is some understanding that Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) who first raised the suggestion of a heliocentric universe in the Renaissance-era may have found some Greek mathematical text which helped him develop his theory of and calculate a heliocentric universe.

Galileo (1564 – 8 January 1642) added the empirical evidence to Copernicus math.

The arguments of the old school and Galileo's contemporaries was that the stars were static in the sky and for that being the case they must be much larger than the Sun and too far away to support a heliocentric model. A model that showed Venus and Mercury circling the Sun.

What all of this shows was a refusal to accept the new thinking and theories that science was exploring and there are a set of circumstances similar to climate change that both Copernicus and Galileo faced, but their situation was more extreme with Copernicus refusing to publish his work while he lived and Galileo 's imprisonment.

Climate change is the new science here where all the facts and theories buzz with ideas but with the caveat that we still don't know everything, but it now has predictive powers. In opposition the climate deniers simply have no theories of what is happening only a set of questions challenging climate change questions which more often than not there are answers and evidence for.

The renaissance and enlightenment brought to us the acceptance and the discipline of science that theories scientific one can be superseded by newer theories that explains nature more fully and in greater detail than previous scientific theories. The way the world was understood before Galileo wasn't wrong it was simply better understood after the heliocentric model was accepted.

The same applies to climate change it brings us to a greater understanding of the natural sciences and what is happening to our world. There's no competing alternative to it if you think there is then post it here to explain the warming of our planet.

There simply isn't an alternative scientific theory to describe what is happening in climate change just scepticism of the current consensus. Copernicus and Galileo were offering a scientific alternative to the old order that's what climate scientist are doing. ( )

A collection of articles about of carbon-reducing activities that can be taken to reduce the risk of global warning, explaining in detail how each works, and what it's estimated efficacy would be. ( )

#1: Refrigeration management was a surprise saving about 90 gigatons of CO2 by 2050. #6: Educating girls was totally out of left field saving about 60 gigatons of C02 by 2050. ( )

Maybe a decade ago now, I read “Blessed Unrest.” What I took away from this book was that humanity is responding to global warming on a massive scale in a decentralized and intuitive way. People all over the world are working in concert, without the need for centralized planning, or even an awareness of each others work, due to something innate in us.

Well, it seems like Hawken’s faith in humanity has waned over the intervening years. His new book, “Drawdown,” has its foundations not in cultural or spiritual realms, but instead is grounded in hard science, technology, and numbers. The book proclaims that it is “the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming,” and I don’t doubt it. Almost a hundred researches worked years to prepare this material, and each of the hundred solutions presented in the books is backed by a thirty-page technical white paper (available on their website), and cumulatively, their models cite tens of thousands of sources and millions of data points.

So, where does all of this get us? In the “plausible” scenario (conservatively optimistic), between 2020 and 2050 we “reduce” atmospheric CO2 emission equivalents by one teraton, and spend a net amount of $30 trillion. Supposedly this will stabilize atmospheric carbon, but not move us significantly into drawdown. In other words, if things go according to plan, we’ll still be stuck somewhere above 400ppm of carbon in the atmosphere at 2050, locking in catastrophic global warming (as the upper region of the “safe” limit is 350ppm).

For all the creative, amazing, and fascinating scenarios drawn up over the course of the book, I dearly wish that more weight was given to the social, political, and cultural aspects of this conversation. Ultimately, our technological “solutions” are nested within this context, and if anything, are more important than the solutions themselves.

So what kind of solutions are we talking about? As you guessed, green energy is part of the picture. But one of the biggest sectors under investigation was our relationship with land (primarily via agriculture and forestry). Other areas include Women and Girls, Buildings and Cities, Transport, Materials, and Coming Attractions (visionary but unproven concepts).

In some ways, this is a reactionary text. Fossil fuel companies knew what climate change was back in the ‘70s and ‘80s. By the ‘90s people understood it was a serious issue, and there were lots of good ideas about what we could do about it. And then the climate change deniers came along, and the whole backlash against preserving the future of humanity. And here we are well into the second decade of the 21st century—with our climate spiraling out of the range in which human habitation can occur, and, at least in the US, a political climate that will sooner implement Universal Basic Income and pay Reparations then address climate change in a substantive way.

In other words, well-meaning NorCal progressives like Hawken are freaking out—and for good reason! I too have found myself engaging in activities explicitly addressing climate change, even though I fundamentally believe that climate change is a surface-level issue that can only be solved by addressing more fundamental systems (such as culture). I don’t think we’re wasting our time to get all analytical on these issues. But I strongly recommend (for myself as much as others), that we don’t lose our felt sense of a connection with the words of mentors and organizations like Charles Eisenstein, Martin Prechtel, Timothy Morton, J. G. Bennett, and the Dark Mountain Project (as well as the younger and more idealistic version of Hawken) that remind us that climate change can only be addressed from a living-systems perspective that goes beyond solar panels, electric vehicles, and closed-loop recycling.

Drawdown is a page-turner for prescient geeks scrambling to hedge against the Anthropocene Extinction. I recommend you go out and get yourself a copy—you’ll be referencing it for years to come. But don’t stop there! Remember to commune with the more-than-human-world in which you’re immersed, make the space to grieve for the violence of these times, and ground into holistic work that lives into the now in a balanced and deeply human way. ( )