December 15, 2014
SR Inc was delighted to feature Project Drawdown founders Paul Hawken and Amanda Ravenhill as keynotes at the Sustainable Business Enterprise Roundtable (SBER) Q4 Executive Symposium. According to Paul and Amanda:
Project Drawdown consists of a book, an open-source database, and an interactive digital platform. These resources define and describe the means to reduce and sequester CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. Project Drawdown is catalyzing a broad coalition of researchers, scientists, graduate students, PhDs, post-docs, policy makers, business leaders, and activists to come together, assemble and present the best available information on the full breadth of substantive climate solutions in order to describe their beneficial financial, social and environmental impact over the next thirty years. The book, database and digital platform all detail what it takes to achieve drawdown – a year-to-year reduction in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Project Drawdown believes the public’s willingness to respond to climate change can shift significantly if they understand how they can benefit, individually and collectively, by adopting these solutions.
Drawdown creates a realistic, optimistic and empowering view of our climate future. There are three paths to drawdown: reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere through efficiency and resource productivity; replace existing energy sources with low carbon renewable energy; and bio-sequester carbon dioxide through innovative farming, grazing and reforestation practices.
Scientists have done an extraordinary job determining the impacts of what will happen if we don’t act to mitigate climate change. Now is the time to measure and calculate how we are responding so that we can amplify that response.
The climate “debate” today is similar to a decade ago. On one hand, the science is robust and unequivocal. Those who grasp the science are increasingly concerned by forecasts. The alarm bells have activated a dedicated core of organizations and activists. On the other hand, because of disinformation, polls show that fewer people are interested in climate science than ten years ago. The majority of Americans are confused or unsure of what to do. Thoughts about climate change understandably provoke feelings of fear, loss and threat. In order to mobilize larger portions of the population into constructive action and voting, this needs to change. Showing the diverse and beneficial implications of climate-focused solutions is key to reversing apathy.
To date, the full range and impact of climate solutions have not been explained in a way that bridges the divide between urgency and agency. Thus the aspirations of people who want to enact meaningful solutions remain largely untapped. Dr. Leon Clark, one of the lead authors of the IPCC 5th Assessment on solutions, wrote, “We have the technologies, but we really have no sense of what it would take to deploy them at scale.” Together, let’s figure it out.
Sustainability Roundtable Member Executives are invited to join the Drawdown Carbon Council. Members of the council gain first access to research findings and will be invited to comment and make suggestions, members will be given full credit as contributors to the book and the complimentary products. Carbon Council members will be invited to convene several times a year in order to further strengthen their ties and complimentary project and initiatives they are pursuing. Please email Amanda Ravenhill at amanda@drawdown.org if you are interested in joining.
