earth science

Project Drawdown

Project Drawdown is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Project Drawdown rather than just read about it. In short: Project Drawdown is a 501(c)(3) organization registered in Minnesota, that focuses on publish research and reports for the most "actionable" ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Their organization is named after the concept of "drawdown" or the point in the process of climate change mitigation where there is a decline of atmospheric carbon through carbon sinks.

Key takeaways

Project Drawdown belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Project Drawdown to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Project Drawdown from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Project Drawdown is a 501(c)(3) organization registered in Minnesota, that focuses on publish research and reports for the most "actionable" ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Their organization is named after the concept of "drawdown" or the point in the process of climate change mitigation where there is a decline of atmospheric carbon through carbon sinks. The organization was founded to facilitate research and has grown beyond the original the success of the 2017 book Drawdown The organization is a 4 star charity on Charity Navigator. The organization is known for publishing research based guides such as the "Solutions Library", Drawdown Explorer and Shift that document actions individuals and policy makers could take in order to advance climate change mitigation. Based on the 2017 book they also publish annual "updates" or "reviews" of the recommendations made in the book.

History The organization was found by Paul Hawken and activist Amanda Joy Ravenhill in 2014. The organization'x first major publication was a book called "Drawdown" published in 2017. Following the book, the project has continued to focus on "advancing science-based climate solutions and strategies around the world." As the organization grew, several important contributors to the project have become import climate communicators, include CEO and scientist Jonathan Foley who also has given Ted talks as part of his organizational leadership; and Katharine Wilkinson a senior writer of Drawdown (2017), and editor-in-chief of The Drawdown Review (2020).

Book

Research approach The organization's main activity is research about the most promising technologies and solutions for climate change; and ranks them on dimensions of scale and feasibility, with literature review based scholarly reports. In the annual reviews, they put forward multiple scenarios for implementing the global targets, such as the 1.5 degree target set by the Paris Agreement. The focus of the research process is on the "Climate solutions that are already here", instead of speculative technologies that have yet to reach scalability. Their communication and research strategy focuses heavily on solutions like afforestation and stopping deforestation and food waste, as well as deploying well proven technologies like closing emission producing factories and implementing solar. In 2019 their list included 80 solutions with proven implementation practices, and 20 that hadn't been scaled yet.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Project Drawdown

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Project Drawdown claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Project Drawdown before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Project Drawdown ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Project Drawdown

In research: Project Drawdown appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Project Drawdown in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Project Drawdown is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Climate change organizations, Organizations based in Minnesota, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Project Drawdown outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Project Drawdown in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Project Drawdown means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Project Drawdown out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Project Drawdown in simple terms?

Why does Project Drawdown matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Project Drawdown?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Project Drawdown.