But as you sit reading this, there’s not much you can do when it comes to those things.

Now, of course, things like clean energy and electric cars are also big solutions. This was so striking because it meant that, as an individual, the #1 thing you can do is change your diet. And Solution #4 was eating a plant-rich diet. What I found most fascinating about the book was that solutions #3 and #4 both covered food. Those are just a few of the key ones.Īs an individual, the biggest thing you can do is change what you eat and how you get your food. I guess we all eat a lotta rice! There are other food solutions in the book. These solutions include reducing food waste, eating a plant-rich diet, regenerative agriculture, composting, and would you believe it: improved rice cultivation. So just by looking at our food systems alone, we can take a targeted hack at climate change. In comparison, food solutions have the ability to reduce emissions by 322 gigatons. When combined, energy solutions can reduce carbon emissions by 247 gigatons over the next 30 years. If you look at all the different sectors, from Energy to Food, to Land Use, to Transportation, Energy surprisingly doesn’t come in at #1. Our food systems have the biggest chance at reversing climate change. Women with more years of education have fewer, healthier children and actively manage their reproductive health.” “Girls’ education, it turns out, has a dramatic bearing on global warming. Educating Girls and Family Planning came in at #6 and #7, which means they not only made the top 100 solutions, but they also beat out more than 90 others.

Something that took me by surprise was the important role women play in reducing carbon emissions. Women are more important than you think when it comes to climate change. As I said before, people follow the money. And what drives these improvements home even more is: “For each ton of carbon dioxide abated, $250.” This means that improving fuel and plane efficiency is better for their bottom line. These solutions can makes airplanes 50-60% more efficient. Solutions range from redesigning planes and the materials used to build them, moving the engine to the back of the plane, and changing taxiing protocols (like taxiing with 1 engine on instead of 2, or towing airplanes with their engines off). So these solutions need to be economically viable to get the ball rolling. This is super important because people always gravitate to money. The book also outlines the net cost and savings for each solution. In fact, many people say that the data is on the conservative side, which means that the benefits of these 100 solutions could be a lot greater depending on how aggressive we move on them. And no one is saying the data is skewed or untrue. That means no one is calling it fake news. What’s important to note about this book is that all of the data is uncontested. So if you’re anything like me, and you’re not a big reader, you can still learn about each solution even with that short attention span of yours. And what I love most about it is that each solution is only 1 or 2 pages long. The book details the top 100 solutions for reversing climate change. based on meticulous research by leading scientists and policymakers around the world.” Project Drawdown is touted as “the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming.

Project drawdown