#project drawdown

Thank you for sharing this! For those who don't know, this is from Dr. Jonathan Foley of Project Drawdown, which is focused on scientifically-backed solutions to climate change. Their website has lots of resources to check out if you are interested.

Here is a selected portion of the thread (emphasis mine):

Compared to 10 or 20 years ago, there is a lot to be optimistic about on climate change. Much more action, and actual changes in emissions.

At the same time, the warming we were always going to see is unfolding around us, and it’s awful.

But don’t let the changes in climate we’re seeing now (which are not at all a surprise to scientists who’ve been in this field for awhile) make you give up on the future.

Yes, we will see more warming before we’re done. But the future is looking better than it did before.

Let’s build on this, double down on our work to stop climate change, and limit the damage as much as we can.

Every tenth of a degree matters. Every ecosystem matters. Every moment matters. We can still make a huge difference—for the better.

p.s I should clarify that reaching 2C is still based on different countries following through on their climate pledges. Some are doing well, but many are not—and some hard work is still needed there.

But the curves are starting to bend. How much is the question.

[…]

But I honestly believe we can still hit well under 2C, and probably well, thanks to some very interesting, recent shifts in technology, markets, investments, business leadership, culture, and politics.

But it’s no guarantee.

What I’m trying to say is this:

There are huge climate challenges facing us, but also some tremendous progress to build on.

Instead of giving in to catastrophic doomism, we can redouble our efforts now, and bend the curve even more.

As we like to say around Project Drawdown—

It’s not game over.

It’s game on!

As Dr. Foley himself points out, it can be hard to straddle the nuanced line between pointing out that was have made progress and are starting to move in the correct direction and that this progress means we need to push even harder not that we can become lenient.

(via Climate Solutions 101 presented by @ProjectDrawdown)

Information about this from Inside Climate News:

Want to take a course in climate solutions? Now you can—for free—online. [The course consists of six units, with units ranging from nine minutes to 23 minutes.]

Project Drawdown, a nonprofit climate solutions organization, unveiled its six-part Climate Solutions 101 course this week, giving teachers, community groups and ordinary people access to key, achievable solutions to address climate change.

Each unit includes a lecture, conversations with experts in the climate field, graphics and additional readings. The course is open to anyone, but these resources are designed with educators in mind.

“We really are looking toward a cultural shift,” Drawdown Learn director Elizabeth Bagley said. “Educators are one group that has the potential to shift culture, to change and influence the ways in which people are approaching a really thorny, wicked problem like climate change, and instead of approaching it with fear and hopelessness, approaching it with a sense of curiosity and opportunity.”

Bagley said her organization found there were plenty of resources available to learn about the problems of climate change, but there was a gap in information when it came to solutions. The course dives into what solutions are available and what needs to be done to keep the worst of global warming at bay.

Trees absorb and sequester large amounts of carbon over time; they’re rendered even more powerful when they’re used in concert with grazing and planted on “marginal” land that isn’t great for growing crops—what Gabriel calls the “funky edges” around, say, healthy woodlands. On the heels of the latest, dire, National Climate Assessment, ag-based climate solutions such as silvopasture could provide much-needed climate benefits—if they can be scaled up.

Project Drawdown, a group of international scientists and policymakers that modeled the 80 most effective ways to battle climate change, ranks silvopasture number nine on its list, reporting that it could reduce CO2 emissions by over 31 gigatons by 2050 if it were ramped up from its current 351 million acres to 554 million acres worldwide.

There are no good estimates of how much land in the U.S. is currently devoted to silvopasture. The amount, though, is small, which means there’s potential for  the practice to play much a larger role here; worldwide, it accounts for about 15 percent of all grazing land.

This prompts the question: Can more American farmers get the message about silvopasture’s positive qualities, and can the resources necessary to get them started with it, or transition to it, be made more readily available?

Excerpt from this story from Yale Climate Connections:

A respected research group, Project Drawdown, finds that deploying solutions consistent with meeting the Paris climate targets would cost tens of trillions of dollars globally. But crucially, those outlays would also yield long-term savings many times larger than the up-front costs.

The new 2020 Drawdown Review includes economic estimates of the capital costs to deploy each solution, net lifetime operation costs, and lifetime profits from the sale of products produced by the agricultural solutions. The key conclusion is that while the upfront costs are substantial – around $25 trillion globally – the resulting savings and profits are five to six times larger.

Project Drawdown is a nonprofit organization that evaluates climate solutions nations could deploy to reach the point where greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere begin to decline (the threshold of carbon “drawdown”). Achieving drawdown will require phasing out the use of fossil fuels that add carbon and strengthening the natural sinks that absorb carbon. In 2017, the group published the New York Times bestselling book Drawdown, which described the 100 most substantive solutions to global warming based on a comprehensive scientific review by the project’s research team.

مع تصاعد التحذيرات بشأن تغيّر المناخ، يزداد التساؤل حول مدى تأثير الأفعال الفردية على الأزمة البيئية العالمية. فهل يمكن لتصرّفاتنا اليومية، أو لطريقة تصويتنا، أو حتى لاختيار البنك الذي نودع فيه أموالنا، أن تُحدث فرقًا حقيقيًا في مستقبل المناخ؟ الإجابة، وفقًا لمجموعة متزايدة من الأبحاث العلمية، هي: نعم، وبشكل يفوق التوقعات. فمن خلال مشروع علمي جديد يحمل اسم “شِفت” (Shift) – اختصارًا لـ “المبادرة…

قلق من تغير المناخ؟ هذه أكثر الأفعال الشخصية تأثيرًا بحسب الأدلة العلمية تتزايد الدراسات التي تحاول قياس أثر الأفعال الفردية في مواجهة أزمة المناخ، وتشير نتائجها إلى أن أكثر الإجراءات تأثيرًا قد تأتي من أماكن غير متوقعة.فعلى الرغم من أن تقليل البصمة الكربونية عبر خفض استهلاك اللحوم أو السفر الجوي نال الاهتمام الأكبر، فإن الأبحاث الحديثة تكشف أن المشاركة المجتمعية، واختيار ممثلين سياسيين داعمين…

#ThereIsNoPlanetB #TheFutureIsClean --- "It’s amazing what investing in clean technology can do. A 10% drop in emissions in a single year!" --- Dr. Jonathan Foley Executive Director, Project Drawdown