Drawdown is the point where greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere begin to decline on a year-to-year basis. (www.drawdown.org)
It can be quite difficult for the average punter to get accurate, relevant and meaning information about climate change; that is if they haven’t switched off to it already. Take the oft quoted predicted average temperature rise of 2 degrees and it's likely impacts. What does this actually mean to the average punter? Nada.
When we think about 2 degrees average temperature rise it doesn't seem like a bit deal, but the extremes are where it’s at. According to one meteorologist I heard a while back, ‘it is like having your head in the oven and your arse in the freezer.’ An 'average' number can fit between very broad extremes. At those extremes we can see very unpredictable weather events. Hailstones the size of golf balls, furious winds, and one in 100 year floods-bush fires-or-droughts happen with alarmingly frequency.
The average global temperature has risen by almost 1 degree C since 1880. There is a whole body of validated meteorological and environmental science that sits behind that 1 degree increase. Australia has been keeping official weather for over 100 years and tracks changes in the trajectory of hot and cold wind currents, rainfall patterns, soil erosion, water contamination, deforestation, ocean currents and environmental pollutants that are trapped in our atmosphere.
Hawken reminds us that our information sources often come as sensationalised news bites that vie for space amongst spurious advertising and click bait. Even when accurate information does make it to the mainstream it is often so negatively focused and filtered with political posturing and vested interests that we deny it, dismiss it, disregard it, or feel impotent to act. It is not that we don't care but it just seems too bloody overwhelming to think about. There has been so much 'awfulising' that society has become immune the existential crisis in which we currently live. We project our concerns out into the future – for our children and grandchildren.
So, it was very refreshing to hear Paul Hawken’s positive framing on climate change and what we can do about it. Hawken and his team of 1000 scientists researched and identified 100 dynamic and innovative solutions that will have the most impact on reducing carbon emissions and reducing greenhouse gases. The results are compiled in a comprehensive body of work in which the science is impeccable, the stories inspirational and the solutions are already happening.
Project Drawdown is grounded in science and Hawken sees it as a testament to the growing stream of humanity who understands the enormity of the challenge we face and are willing to commit their lives to a future of kindness, security and regeneration.
Some of the solutions researched are obvious. Wind and solar are now cheaper than fossil fuel. Reducing food waste minimises methane emissions. But Hawken admits that the research threw up some surprises: Globally 75% of all food is produced by smallholders. This is something we can get behind as communities, relocalising our growing and production, supporting regenerative farming and community supported agriculture. The processed commercial food that comes from large scale agriculture is the precursor to poor diet and disease.
Women make up 43% of agricultural labour force and produce 60 to 80% of food crops in poorer parts of the world. They are less educated, own fewer resources and often marginalised. Educating girls and combining this with family planning is revealed as one of the highest-ranking solutions identified in the research.
Refrigerants are still a huge issue, so we need to get to that! Despite the work done to eliminate CFC’s and HFC’s since the 1987 Montreal Protocol to heal the ozone layer, there are still high levels of CFC’s in circulation. Their capacity to warm the atmosphere is up to 9,000 times greater than carbon dioxide.
Many of the Drawdown solutions are technological, some are biological, all are sociological; and all require us to work in harmony with each other and nature. We are currently living in a humanitarian and ecological crisis of increasing inequity across all scales. Hawken posits that a way to stop stealing from the future, is to address our current existential concerns. We cannot focus on future existential threats when our current existential threats remain unaddressed. We are not wired that way. He is talking about the need for relevant and comprehensive education, proper nutrition, healthy psychological and physical environments, meaningful work and affordable housing for all.
In a polarised world of haves and have-nots, many are in survival and others are ‘all right Jack’ with little awareness how life is for those outside their own bubble. There is a lot of blame and shame bouncing across that divide. It doesn’t help. We need to rise above it and use our collective intelligence to create life enhancing conditions for all life.
Reducing global warming is an urgent goal. In Australia we could use the $5-6 billion annual fossil fuels subsidy and put it to towards creating jobs that regenerate the way we live and what we do create a viable life for all. We could get over ourselves and actually put a price on carbon. There is plenty we can do and are doing already.
The 100 Drawdown solutions Hawken and his science team offers are measured, mapped and scaleable. They are well researched, tried and tested. They show possibility and a comprehensive pathway. He reminds us that yes, of course the science is impeccable, but it is people that will create the solutions of our current existential crisis. He exhorts us to focus on those. He says there are no small solutions, they are all part of a whole social, spiritual, economic and environmental interconnection.
When asked about whether he is pessimistic or optimistic about the future his response is always the same, “If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.’
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