The book begins to envision the world we might create in the process of reversing global warming. But by collecting those solutions in a single mosaic, it is also much more. Drawdown certainly is that: 100 means to avoid the release of emissions and to bring carbon back home. Katharine Wilkinson penned a guest blog for the Foundation to commemorate the anniversary of the book’s publication, commenting, “Many see in Drawdown a catalogue of technologies and practices that, deployed together, can reach ‘drawdown’-that point in time when the quantity of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere peaks and then declines year over year. John Lanier recognized the publication of Drawdown in 2017 as one of the good things that happened in a Climate Year End Review. “ Drawdown is likely the most hopeful thing you’ll ever read about our ability to take on global warming.” Drawdown is likely the most comprehensive model of climate solutions ever made.” government (and the global community) begins to aggressively focus on altering the climate future. But a new book might change that-and serve as a blueprint for what comes next if the U.S. “A rigorous and profoundly important resource.” An optimistic program for getting out of our current mess, well deserving of the broadest possible readership.” “Be kindly unto the scientists, for they may just save our skin-and make us happier and wealthier in the bargain. such an effort can do more than merely succeed that it can succeed well, and open into futures that we can actually bear to contemplate.” Stabilizing the climate system will require a heroic global effort, but the point here is only to show that. “It will give you the best kind of hope, the kind that balances realism with radical vision. Genius in its simplicity, Drawdown was lauded by scientists and thought leaders alike: The thesis of Hawken’s Drawdown builds on his previous works with an optimistic message that there are at least 100 solutions to climate change that already exist in various forms around the world, and all we need to do to begin to reduce emissions is to scale those solutions. So in 2017, when Project Drawdown, founded by Paul, published Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, we couldn’t help but look for an opportunity to move Paul’s roadmap for reversing climate change from idea into action. The book galvanized not only Ray’s vision for Interface, but a fast and devoted friendship between Ray and Paul Hawken, who went on to become an advisor to both the company and the Foundation that bears Ray’s name. Ray went on to call that moment a ‘spear in the chest’ – the realization that his company, his ‘third child’ after his two natural daughters, was as he put it, ‘a plunderer of the earth.’ Over the next several nights, his imagination was sparked by the book’s thesis – that earth and all of its living systems are in decline, and that business and industry are the only institutions wealthy enough and pervasive enough to reverse it. Led by equal parts curiosity and desperation, he picked up Hawken’s book. The timing was perfect – Ray was just preparing to give an internal talk on the company’s environmental vision, and he was the first to admit that he didn’t have a vision. If you know the story, you know that Ray’s original epiphany came at the behest of a customer request – a complaint, really– that “Interface didn’t understand sustainability.” Through a series of serendipitous moves, Paul Hawken’s book, The Ecology of Commerce, landed on Ray’s desk. In the mid-1990s, that vision was a fairly outlandish notion – making a petroleum intensive business like carpet manufacturing sustainable. That’s the vision.”Īs students of Ray Anderson’s journey, we at the Foundation pay attention to the work of Ray’s “Eco Dream Team,” the group of experts that Ray collected to give form and substance to his vision. And we’ll be doing well … very well … by doing good. spend the rest of our days harvesting yester-year’s carpets and other petrochemically derived products and recycling them into new materials and converting sunlight into energy with zero scrap going to the landfill and zero emissions into the ecosystem. It took us back to the original epiphany that inspired Ray Anderson’s mission to transform his company, Interface, into a 21st century enterprise where he and his team would, in his words: “. When Drawdown Georgia launched in 2020, it was a full circle moment in many ways.
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