Global Warming or Climate Change — whatever you want to call it — there is a general consensus that burning fossil fuels are heating up the earth. Leaders of both parties are proposing a wide range of solutions to reduce and eventually reverse global warming. Whether it’s a carbon tax, planting a trillion trees, more nuclear power plants or just solar panels on every building, it is daunting to determine which solutions are most practical.
Whenever global warming solutions are discussed, I refer to a book called “Project Drawdown,” subtitled “The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming." The Project Drawdown effort was led by Paul Hawken and Amanda Joy Ravenhill, who gathered a diverse team of over 200 scholars, scientists, policymakers, business leaders, and activists worldwide to assess, map, and model the most substantive solutions to reverse global warming.
What I particularly like about Project Drawdown is that, for each potential solution, they consider the total atmospheric CO2 reduction, the net cost to achieve these reductions, and the net savings compared to business as usual. The plan includes 80 well-documented solutions in a variety of categories, including energy, materials, food, land use, women and girls, transportation and buildings.
Drawdown is not just a pie-in-the-sky plan that ignores economics, technology and politics.To alleviate your suspense, the top ten global warming solutions are refrigeration, on-shore wind turbines, reduced food waste, plant-rich diet, tropical forests, educating girls, family planning, solar farms, silvopasture and rooftop solar. Please check out the Project Drawdown book or online summaries, and listen to my take on these solutions on this week’s Energy Show.
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