Book Review: Drawdown

Ok let’s make this brief.

LOVE this book (http://www.drawdown.org/). And not just because of the book itself. What I didn’t know from reading the reviews I found of this book is that you can find the list of their “100 most substantive solutions to reverse global warming” right here on their website:

http://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank

That’s the kind of basic information and data that I love to see! Presented simply and informatively.

I was very excited to get a copy of this book, which, as it’s editor and key driver Paul Hawken states, is the first really comprehensive attempt to present the best practice ideas that we can all start clamouring for to save our wonderful planet and its wonderful civilisation (that’s you and me!), by taking action ourselves and by calling on our governments and industry to do their part.

It presents these 100 solutions with accessible technical information that the average technologically savvy person should be able to understand. For each solution, it lists how many gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents could potentially be avoided or removed from the atmosphere (during the time period between 2020 and 2050). To give a comparative example, the highest scoring “solution” is refrigerant management, which could potentially save 89.74 gigatonnes carbon dioxide equivalents. Another stand-out “solution” is reducing food waste, which could save 70.53 gigatonnes carbon dioxide equivalents, just trumping the 66.11 gigatonnes carbon dioxide equivalents saved if 50% of the world’s population were to convert to a plant rich diet.  In 2016, globally, around 36 gigatonnes carbon dioxide equivalents were released.

The book is an easy-to-use reference, very well put together. The website itself contains a lot of useful information, extending what is presented in the the book. I highly recommend getting  yourself a copy of the book for the ease of use and how it contains so much highly useful information. But I want to make the point that ANYONE with access to the internet can access the important information presented here. As a start, try printing a copy of the “100 most substantive solutions”and sticking it to your fridge so you can help educate yourself and others about what technological and cultural changes we need to be pursuing. You might like to follow their facebook page too: https://www.facebook.com/projectdrawdown.

With love,

Heidi