Something cheery for a change

Something cheery for a change, part two

While our eyes were fixed on the dumpster fire in Washington, D.C., Project Drawdown published a book illustrating a path toward a future in which the human species stops adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and starts sequestering carbon instead.

There are some surprises. Educating girls clearly leads to healthier, happier populations, but who knew it would have such a huge carbon impact?

This book will cheer you up. While you're waiting to get your hands on a copy, here's an interview with author Paul Hawken, who talks about some other surprises from the book's 100-item to-do list. Says Hawken:

"... studies show that the human brain is not wired to deal with future existential threats.

What we’re saying at Drawdown is that we’re going in through a locked back door to humanity, and the front door is wide open. That front door is needs assessment, what every human being needs, which is security, a living wage, jobs that give them a sense of purpose. We’re the only species without full employment, and never has been so much work been needed to be done. Regenerative development is development, whether it’s on an urban, transportation, housing, marine agriculture, or health level. It’s development that actually heals the future as opposed to stealing from it, which is what we’re doing today....

"We’re stealing our future and selling it. Regenerative development is the opposite. It’s not as though we have to say, 'OK, let’s do this for climate and this for biodiversity and this for human health.' The regenerative development addresses all of them simultaneously. That’s the front door."

https://e360.yale.edu/features/paul-hawken-on-one-hundred-solutions-to-the-climate-crisis