If you haven’t already, I encourage you to check out Project Drawdown, which purports to “map, measure, model, and describe the 100 most substantive solutions to global warming.”  I am waiting to review the book, but the website is quite comprehensive and will become even more so on May 1 when technical summaries for each solution are made available.

Led by Paul Hawken, Project Drawdown is the culmination of a multi-year effort by scholars and scientists across the globe to evaluate which global warming solutions are currently available and economically viable, have a large potential to reduce GHGs with minimal negative impacts, and can be scaled globally.

Surprisingly (because we don’t hear much about it), the largest proposed intervention is to phase out HFCs as refrigerant coolants.  While HFCs do not harm the ozone layer (as opposed to the CFCs they replaced), they have 1,000 to 9,000 times greater capacity to warm the atmosphere.  Replacing HFCs with propane or ammonium is estimated to reduce a whopping 89.74 Gigatons of CO2 by 2050.  Other top-five solutions include Onshore Wind Turbines (84.6 GT), Reduced Food Waste (70.53 GT), Plant-Rich Diets (66.11 GT), and Tropical Forest Restoration (61.23 GT).

What really excites me, however, are solutions #6 and #7: Educating Girls and Family Planning, which have combined potential emissions reductions of 129.2 GT of CO2 by 2050.  It is clear that educated women with access to family planning are more empowered and have fewer and healthier children.  Globally, this could result in humanity’s population peaking with one billion fewer people, which would have massive implications for our climate.

What’s even cooler about these solutions is that they are thinking systemically and outside the box of carbon offsets.  Of course it is vital that we reduce CO2 emissions as quickly and as fully as humanly possible.  No one argues with that (at least no one that believes in science). What I’m saying is that reducing CO2 is a necessary, but not sufficient response to global warming.

We also need to do so much more! We need to create local and resilient food systems.We need to preserve biodiversity and wildness. We need to fight for climate justice and for those unfairly burdened by the consequences of global warming. And we need to deconstruct and replace the economic and political systems, and even the mindsets and worldviews that got us into this situation in the first place.

Even if humans completely stopped emitting CO2 today there is still enough already in our atmosphere to cause massive sea level rise, increased disease rates and extreme weather events, declining agriculture, and much more. In addition to reducing emissions, it is equally vital that we focus on resilience in the race of certain changes and educating girl and women and providing access to family planning are some of the best ways to do that.

These solutions also demonstrate the limitations of carbon offsetting.  Nobody will ever be able to sell credits on the Voluntary Carbon Market for CO2 reductions associated with educating women and family planning.  The impacts are not discrete and impossible to measure except, perhaps, on the global population level and, even there, I suspect Hawken et al. are using  a lot of unproven assumptions.

In addition to challenges with efficiency, leakage, and additionally, offsetting constrains us to supporting only projects that are measurably mitigating emissions.  This is why Earth Deeds has developed an alternative method called “onsetting”, which drops the concept of carbon neutrality, prices carbon based on the Social Cost of Carbon, and allows funding (or time!) to go to local projects that are building resiliency — such as educating women!

Project Drawdown lays out a road map for how humanity can dramatically reduce global GHG emissions by 2050.  It also encourages us to think beyond emissions and to consider what got into this mess and what systemic solutions will build resiliency and healthy communities in a climate changed world.

 

Happy Solstice and and may your holidays be bright! if you are wondering how you can have a more eco-friendly and less stressful season, read these tips on greening the holidays. And, if you’d like to make a year-end contribution to help Earth Deeds support local solutions to global warming (nudge, nudge ;-), you can do so here. Thanks!
It was an exciting recently to follow the COP21 meetings, which resulted in the adoption of an historic international Paris Agreement, George Monbiot summed up the conference nicely when he said, “By comparison to what it could have been, it’s a miracle; by comparison to what it should have been, it’s a disaster.” While governments are reaching new collaborations on climate change, it is more important than ever that citizens act collectively to find solutions both at home and at the societal level. As Bill McKibben has stated, we are “past the point where we’re going to manage to do it one light bulb at a time.” What can you do as an individual to make the most meaningful impact? Please read Clara Fang’s compelling blog post to find out.

And here’s what we’ve been up to lately at Earth Deeds.

AASHE
Daniel and Clara attended the 10th anniversary Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) conference in Minneapolis from Oct. 26-27. In addition to meeting with many sustainability directors interested in Earth Deeds, we are excited to join a Working Group to explore how ACUPCC signatory schools can go beyond offsetting in accounting for their carbon emissions. Sounds like a job for Earth Deeds!

Donating Time
At AASHE, we heard from schools interested in working with Earth Deeds in ways that engage students bodies rather than their wallets. So, we will soon allow users to contribute TIME (through volunteering for a organization or project) rather than money to account for their carbon emissions! We’re using a hoped-for minimum wage of $15/hr to account for one’s emissions so 1 mT of CO2 would equal $40 or 2.67 hrs.  Stay tuned as we’re excited to see where this goes!

Team Spotlight – Individual Onsetting
So far, Earth Deeds has focused on allowing “Teams” to measure and account for their collective emissions.  Now we are creating the ability for individuals to onset their emissions and contribute to a range of organizations. We currently have 10 organizations set up for “parallel” or “split” payments on Paypal (including 350.org) and expect to add many more over time.  Check it out here!

Project Spotlight – Fundacion En Via
Pacific Lutheran University is using Earth Deeds to support En Via, a non-profit organization located in Oaxaca, Mexico. Their microloan program gives women the opportunity to create or expand small businesses; their educational programs help women with their businesses, personal finances, and use of loans; and their ecotourism model directs funds into communities, while connecting people to the ideas, strength and power of women working hard to improve their future.

Happy holidays everyone and have a very blessed new year!

 

Happy Fall Equinox! At this time of great change, I am heartened that Pope Francis will call for climate action from political leaders in his Rally in Washington DC on Thursday. Let’s join the Week of Moral Action for Climate Justice by donating, signing the petition, or sharing their page.

Lots of change is happening with Earth Deeds as well!  Jeff Mazur, our part-time CFO, moved to Amherst around the same time my family and I moved to Kingston, Ontario.  I was also at Findhorn in July where I had the honor of being elected President of the Global Ecovillage Network so I have lots to juggle these days.  Here are some past and upcoming highlights at Earth Deeds:

PROJECT Spotlight: Sandele Foundation, Gambia

In March, I had the privilege of helping teach on an Ecovillage Design Education course at the Sandele Eco-Retreat and Learning Center in the Gambia.  In addition to working with local villagers to develop an ecotourism plan for 20 miles of coastline we are excited to use Earth Deeds to enable ecotourists to support local solutions to global warming.  Sandele was also recently announced as a Semi- Finalist for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge!  Let’s hope they win!

TEAM Spotlight: Intercultura

Students travel from all over the world to study Spanish at the Intercultura Language School in Costa Rica. Now they can onset their travel and give back to their host community by supporting La Asociacion CREAR, which offers environmental education programs for local community members. Check out this short video that students watch in their orientations and let others know about this opportunity. Thanks!

Journal Article 

Earth Deeds’ part-time Communications Manager, Clara Fang, and I co-authored an article entitled The Myth of Climate Neutrality: Carbon Onsetting as an Alternative to Carbon Offsetting that was published in the April, 2015 issue of Sustainability: The Journal of Record.  The article explores the controversy of carbon offsetting and proposes onsetting an alternative system that enables institutions to measure, reduce, and price their emissions and support campus and community-based sustainability projects.  Let me know if you’d like me to send you a PDF of the article.

Website Upgrades  

“Parallel payments” are now working on our site so we can set up Projects to directly receive contributions rather than us needing to collect and disburse funds.  Yay!  And our calculator now offers equivalencies of users’ carbon emissions to help them understand their real-world impacts.  For example, a round-trip flight from New York to New Orleans emits ~1 tonne of CO2, which is approximately equivalent to watching ~11,000 hours of TV or the annual emissions of someone living in El Salvador!
AASHE

I will be speaking about onsetting at the Association for Advancing Sustainability in Higher Education conference on October 27th.  They have expressed interest in onsetting the entire event in 2016, which would engage over 2,000 sustainability professionals to work with Earth Deeds.

Tip Section: Conserve Water

Okay, who remembers the Star Trek – Next Generation scene where an alien describes humans as bags of mostly water?  It’s true!  Our bodies contain over 90% water, which is a strong hint that it is a precious resource we should not squander.  Repairing a leaky toilet can save 200 gallons of water per day! Running your dishwasher with only full loads can save 100 pounds of carbon dioxide and $40 per year. Let’s conserve and protect our water resources both for our own health and the health of our planet!

 

Take care everyone and please feel free to contact us if you have any thoughts or questions!