Putting Drawdown into global operation

For reversing the climate crisis in one generation

Photo by Jason Ortego on Unsplash

Let’s figure out … how can we reverse global warming? – Paul Hawken

---

People everywhere making decisions for meeting human physical needs (in turquoise) are creating exponentially growing things-we-extract flows and pollution flows (in orange) that are damaging the biosphere (in deep green) faster than the biosphere can regenerate itself …

This exponentially-growing damage to the biosphere as a whole is showing up as the nine global-scale ecological crises (including the climate crisis) identified by the Stockholm Resilience Centre …

---

In his books Drawdown (2017) and Regeneration (2021), environmentalist Paul Hawken took on the challenge of reversing the climate crisis “in one generation.”

Drawdown made three massive contributions to the project of reversing the climate crisis in one generation:

First, Drawdown established the concept of a “climate solution” for meeting human physical needs^[1] that people everywhere might decide to adopt.

Second, Drawdown established the concept of a climate solution that people everywhere want to adopt because …

• the climate solution delivers performance benefits because it meets a human physical need (for things like energy, water, food, materials & manufactures),

• the climate solution delivers cost savings benefits because it avoids more costs than it incurs, and

• the climate solution delivers climate-crisis-reversing benefits measured by the avoided and/or sequestered greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions delivered by the climate solution …

Third, Drawdown validated the concepts of cost savings benefits and climate-crisis-reversing benefits by measuring and evaluating the cost savings benefits and climate-crisis-reversing benefits delivered by 93 categories of climate solutions.

Drawdown estimated those 93 categories of climate solutions – when widely adopted -- to deliver more than $97 trillion of avoided cost savings (cost savings benefits) and more than 1 trillion tons of avoided and/or sequestered greenhouse gas emissions (climate-crisis-reversing benefits) …

---

So what happened to Drawdown?

Despite its groundbreaking thinking about “climate solutions,” cost savings benefits and climate-crisis-reversing benefits and …

… despite its stupendous potential in the form of: (1) avoided cost savings on a scale of $100 trillion^[2], and (2) climate-crisis-reversing benefits on a scale of 1 trillion tons (1000 gigatons) of avoided GHG emissions …

… Drawdown’s promise of a “plan … to reverse global warming” – and Regeneration’s promise of “ending the climate crisis in one generation” – have not yet been fulfilled.

---

Drawdown’s promise has not yet been fulfilled because, until now, a process has not yet been invented through which people everywhere want, decide & act to adopt climate solutions like those studied in Drawdown.

---

To put Drawdown into global operation for “ending the climate crisis in one generation” – and to create a “regenerative economy” on a scale of $100 trillion of avoided cost savings – I invented a process – called “regenerative decision-making” – through which people everywhere use “regenerative information services” for …

… identifying options for meeting their human physical needs …

… evaluating the performance benefits, cost savings benefits and biosphere-regenerating benefits of those options …

… comparing those benefits …

… persuading themselves what options they want to adopt …

… and deciding to adopt “regenerative options” (including climate solutions) that deliver performance benefits, cost savings benefits and biosphere-regenerating benefits …

---

People everywhere wanting, deciding & acting to adopt regenerative options (in turquoise) scales back (in yellow) the things-we-extract flows and pollution flows (in orange) …

… and, at the same time, keeps intact the things-we-extract flows (in orange) and things-we-use flows (in chartreuse) for meeting every human being’s physical needs …

… which allows the biosphere (in deep green) to regenerate itself (in yellow) as a whole …

… and allows the biosphere’s regenerative capacity (in bright green) to reverse (in yellow) the ecological crises (in orange) as a whole …

… and allows the biosphere’s regenerative capacity (in bright green) to meet the physical needs of all its living beings — including its human beings — as a whole …

---

Some people might feel excited to be in on the creation of a regenerative economy -- on a scale of $100 trillion -- for reversing the ecological crises (including the climate crisis) as a whole.

In the words of Kurt Vonnegut: “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

How about you? What’s your feeling about that?

---

What do you think? Does this make sense to you?

If the prospect of practically & actually reversing the climate crisis excites you, please consider subscribing to my Substack channel, Solving the Eco-crises:

I’m super grateful for your likes, comments and re-stacks.

Thank you for reading Solving the Eco-crises.

Peace and Aloha!

Erik

P.S. I cross-posted this article on Medium for greater reach.

---

[1] “The way to reverse global warming is to address human needs, the needs they have now.” – Paul Hawken

[2] Rounding up the Project Drawdown avoided cost savings figure from $97 trillion to $100 trillion is justified because Project Drawdown selectively studied only 93 categories of regenerative options from among thousands of categories of options for meeting human physical needs.