immanence

In the parallel universe where good news remains possible…

A team or 70 researchers from 22 countries and led by Paul Hawken has produced a very interesting analysis of potential climate change solutions. The analysis, released last month as a book called Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, “maps, measures, models, and describes the 100 most substantive solutions to global warming.” 

With challenges as vast and seemingly unbounded as climate change (or, even more, “the Anthropocene”), I generally find the language of “problems” and “solutions” to be inadequate. These are, after all, not just technical questions to which we only need to crunch some data to find the answers. They are ambiguously defined, multi-scalar sets of conditions — conundra that put into question not only what we know, but how we know it — how to ask questions and how to answer them — as well as who “we” even are. What do these conditions even mean for us? What are our capabilities for acting collectively so as to change them? How might we transform those capabilities?

That said, focusing on what people can do — and therefore on solutions we might work toward — is a way of overcoming what Natalie Jeremijenko has called the “crisis of agency.” So the language of “solutions” need not detract from the fact that we need to have options. Hawken’s study presents a mapping of a hugely diverse range of options that should be discussed and attempted (even if it doesn’t cover all the possible options).

In an informative interview at Vox, Hawken — whose 2008 book Blessed Unrest tried to do something similar with social change organizations around the world — discusses the project as well as some of its limitations. Among those limitations is a lack of data — for instance, for measuring the carbon benefits of peace as opposed to war and militarism.

The solutions, ranked according to the “Plausible Scenario” (as opposed to the less plausible “Drawdown” and “Optimal” scenarios), are surprising, to say the least. The top five are

1. Refrigerant Management
2. Onshore Wind Turbines
3. Reduced Food Waste
4. Plant-Rich Diet
5. Tropical Forests

Perhaps more significantly, the next two if combined would create the “number one solution, in terms of potential impact.” Specifically, a “combination of educating girls and family planning… together could reduce 120 gigatons of CO2-equivalent by 2050 — more than on- and offshore wind power combined (99 GT).”

Putting all this into the perspective of this (Trumpian perverse news) universe, the interview ends with Hawken’s thoughts on the US, which he says (correctly) “has never led in this area”: