Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming edited by Paul Hawken.

3/5 rating. 228 pages.

Book #54 of 2021. Read August 7, 2021.

This is the synthesis of a large team of experts who looked at what it will take to reverse global warming. 80 different solutions are put forth that include the estimated costs of each, the amount of money saved, and the CO2 equivalent saved.

While this is a very in-depth book that is not exactly thrilling in its telling, the myriad of solutions posited are certainly interesting. I think the most impressive and positive side of this book is that there are so many solutions that are already available, proven and ready to implement that could improve the world right this instant. Unfortunately, a lot of these are slowed mostly by bureaucracy, a lack of concerted backers, and inertia.

Along with the many solutions already available and their in-depth evidence (including estimates of savings) there are a bunch of new technologies and ideas that are coming that should make the transition away from fossil-fuels and extraction-based practices much easier. This book is optimistic in the sense that there are a ton of available solutions. But we still have to actually implement them. Inertia and the status quo can no longer be seen as reasons to keep things the way they currently are.

Never before in the span of human history has there been such opportunities for us to improve our lives, our health, and the health of the natural world. It is time for us to each demand change from our politicians, our grocery stores, and everywhere else that you make an impact. Every action that you take can be a positive or negative for this world. As has been said many times before, we are not owners of this world with dominion to destroy it, we are merely stewards who pass it on to our posterity.

I personally want to ensure that this world is better than the one that was gifted to me. Become a part of that positive change with me.

Quotes:

“The era of fossil fuels is over, and the only question now is when the new era will be fully upon us. Economics make its arrival inevitable: Clean energy is less expensive.”

“In the United States, the wind energy potential of just three states—Kansas, North Dakota, and Texas—would be sufficient to meet electricity demand from coast to coast.”

“The International Monetary Fund estimates that the fossil fuel industry received more than $5.3 trillion in direct and indirect subsidies in 2015; that is $10 million a minute, or about 6.5 percent of global GDP.”

“At a combined cost of $1.8 trillion, wind turbines can deliver net savings of $7.7 trillion over three decades of operation. These are conservative estimates, however. Costs are falling annually and new technological improvements are already being installed, increasing capacity to generate more electricity at the same or lower cost.”

“When coal is burned to boil water to turn a turbine to generate electricity, two-thirds of the energy is dispersed as waste heat and in-line losses.”

“When their entire life cycle is taken into account, solar farms curtail 94 percent of the carbon emissions that coal plants emit and completely eliminate emissions of sulfur and nitrous oxides, mercury, and particulates. Beyond the ecosystem damage those pollutants do, they are major contributors to outdoor air pollution, responsible for 3.7 million premature deaths in 2012.”

“At current cost, a $500 billion investment in distributed energy systems would save U.S. businesses and households $4 trillion in peak-demand utility billing over the next thirty years. Battery cost could halve in the next four years, further amplifying those gains.”

“The food we waste contributes 4.4 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere each year—roughly 8 percent of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Ranked with countries, food would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases globally, just behind the United States and China.”

“The same year, France passed a law forbidding supermarkets from trashing unsold food and requiring that they pass it on to charities or animal feed or composting companies instead.”

“The cooking fuels used by 40 percent of humanity are wood, charcoal, animal dung, crop residues, and coal. As these solids burn, often inside homes or in areas with limited ventilation, they release plumes of smoke and soot liable for 4.3 million premature deaths each year.”

“Globally, household air pollution is the leading environmental cause of death and disability, ahead of unsafe water and lack of sanitation, and it is responsible for more premature deaths than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.”

“Tree intercropping reinforces the idea that human well-being does not depend on an agricultural system that is extractive and hostile to living organisms. Rather, it depends on discovering, innovating, and practicing methods of agriculture that feed a growing population, while providing continuous improvements to soil, fertility, habitat, diversity, and fresh water.”

“The impact of overgrazing led to the belief that the land would recover if animals were removed. Not so. When herbivores are removed from the land, whether they are wild or domesticated, the land deteriorates. The damage done by overgrazing obscured what happens when grasslands are undergrazed—soil health declines and carbon is lost.”

“‘A 2013 study found that educating girls “is the single most important social and economic factor associated with a reduction in vulnerability to natural disasters.’ The single most important. It is a conclusion drawn from examining the experiences of 125 countries since 1980 and echoes other analyses. Educated girls and women have a better capacity to cope with shocks from natural disasters and extreme weather events and are therefore less likely to be injured, displaced, or killed when one strikes. This decreased vulnerability also extends to their children, families, and the elderly.”

“According to the U.S. Green Building Council, air infiltration accounts for 25 to 60 percent of energy used to heat and cool a home—energy that is simply wasted.”

“Insulation is one of the most practical and cost-effective ways to make buildings more energy efficient—both in new construction and through retrofitting older buildings that often are not well encased.”

“According to market sizing and analysis done by the Rockefeller Foundation and Deutsche Bank’s climate change shop, $279 billion could be invested in the United States in retrofitting residential, commercial, and institutional buildings, yielding more than $1 trillion in energy savings over ten years—equal to 30 percent of the country’s annual spending on electricity. In the process, more than 3.3 million cumulative job years of employment would be generated across all parts of the country, and U.S. emissions would be cut by almost 10 percent.”

“In a median time of sixty-six years, tropical forests can recover 90 percent of the biomass that old-growth landscapes contain.”

“The days of sweeping, untouched landscapes are largely gone. Because forests and people rarely exist in isolation in today’s heavily populated world, restoring a forest means more than making it ecologically robust again. It needs to be socially and economically viable or, better yet, valuable—a source of pride and profit, play and provisions for local communities at large.”

“The United States leads the world in the production of liquid biofuels. Forty percent of the corn grown nationally becomes ethanol.”

“Phytoplankton are minute, but the 1 percent annual decline in the oceans’ plankton and kelp is massively significant: They comprise half of the organic matter on earth and produce at least half of the earth’s oxygen.”

“The combination of flora can reduce ambient temperatures in the tropics by fourteen to twenty-three degrees Fahrenheit, which enhances both humidity and plant growth. Species biodiversity doubles in intensive silvopasture systems. Stocking rates nearly triple. Meat production in pounds per acre per year is four to ten times higher than in conventional systems. The tannin content in Leucaena leucocephala seems to protect protein degradation in the rumen of cattle, reducing methane emissions, which partially explains the significant weight gain of animals raised via intensive silvopasture.”

“[T]he pathway to sustainability is beauty, because people preserve and care for that which feeds their spirit and heart.”

“We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it.”

“Movements are dreams with feet and hands, hearts and voices.”

“To put it another way, the profit that can be achieved by instituting regenerative solutions is greater than the monetary gains generated by causing the problem or conducting business-as-usual. For instance, the most profitable and productive method of farming is regenerative agriculture. In the electric power generation industry, more people in the U.S. as of 2016 are employed by the solar industry than by gas, coal, and oil combined.”

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