sustainability Archives

A friend recently made me aware of a website for a group called Project Drawdown. It’s interesting…it’s addressing the concerns of those who want to do something to fight global warming but maybe aren’t sure where to start. On a larger scale though, it’s identifying all the things we can be doing to reach that drawdown point…where greenhouse gas emissions start decreasing for a change.

In their own words, “Project Drawdown is the first effort to measure and project the collective impact of a broad range of solutions if implemented at scale. Rather than focusing on a single solution or sector of solutions, Project Drawdown has done the math on what humanity is capable of achieving with the broad range of tools already in use around the globe.”

Politicians would be wise to draw from this knowledge base to draft their own proposals for fighting climate change, if they wish to attract the interest of voters who care about this issue. The breadth of ideas here is inspiring.

This is a good article talking about the current state of technology of carbon capture, and how it’s a vital piece of the puzzle to minimize the effects of manmade climate change. It is imperative that governments and the private sector invest in the deployment of these technologies.

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A new study by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center argues that a combination of socio-economic stratification (haves vs. have-nots) and resource consumption are likely to lead to the collapse of our civilization. Other studies (like this and this) have come to the same conclusion, putting the timeline in the 15 year range. Can we avoid this? The SESYNC‘s study states that,

Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion.

Given how our current society is doing the exact opposite, forgive me if I’m a bit pessimistic…

You can read more about this latest study here.

The BBC reports that globally, around 100 million sharks are being killed each year. This is a mind-boggling number and anyone who thinks we can deplete the numbers of an apex predator at that rate without consequences is a fool. I’m scared of what the future brings to our society when we are so blatantly altering the ecosystem that future generations will depend upon, without being able to really understand what these changes will actually mean. It’s stupid and selfish.

A British company is working on a process which makes a hydrocarbon fuel out of CO2 and water. Cool idea, but at this point it’s a lab experiment and nothing more (though they’ve produced about five liters in the lab, so it’s proving itself). The big question is, is it scalable, what’s the efficiency, and what’s the source for the energy required to power this process.

The most important point here though, is that this is just one of many such projects in the works, trying to find more eco-friendly fuel sources. If just one of these can be successful, it can make a real impact on the sustainability of our lifestyle on this planet. Our current fossil-fuel-dependent lifestyle is most definitely NOT sustainable and we need to transition to an alternative quickly.

Tag: sustainability

Project Drawdown

CO2 capture

Is our civilization doomed?

Unsustainable shark fishing

Making fuel from air