Project Drawdown
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Irrigation dates back to roughly 6000 BC, when the waters of the Nile and Tigris-Euphrates were first diverted to feed farmers’ fields. Today, agriculture consumes 70 percent of the world’s freshwater resources, and irrigation is essential for 40 percent of the world’s food production. Because...
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Conventional wisdom has long held that the world cannot be fed without chemicals and synthetic fertilizers. Evidence points to a new wisdom: The world cannot be fed unless the soil is fed. Regenerative agriculture enhances and sustains the health of the soil by restoring its carbon content, which...
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Plows are absent on farms practicing conservation agriculture, and for good reason. When farmers till their fields to destroy weeds and fold in fertilizer, water in the freshly turned soil evaporates. Soil itself can be blown or washed away and carbon held within it released into the atmosphere....
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Rice is the staple food of 3 billion people, providing one-fifth of calories consumed worldwide. Its cultivation is responsible for at least 10 percent of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and 9 to 19 percent of global methane emissions. That is because flooded rice paddies are ideal...
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Human activity has transformed a significant fraction of the planet’s land, especially for growing food and harvesting forests. Land is the common ground of shelter, sustenance, feed for animals, fiber, timber, and some sources of energy, and the source of livelihood for billions of people. Our...
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Founded in 2014, Project Drawdown is a nonprofit organization that seeks to help the world reach “Drawdown”— the future point in time when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline. Since the 2017 publication of the New York Times bestseller,...
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Project Drawdown definesbiocharas: a biosequestration process for converting biomass to long-lived charcoal (and energy) which can be used as a soil amendment. This solution provides an alternative to disposing of unused biomass through burning or decomposition. Biochar is a carbon-rich, highly...
- 2017-04-18 Review “At this point in time, theDrawdownbook is exactly what is needed; a credible, conservative solution-by-solution narrative that we can do it. Reading it is an effective inoculation against the widespread perception of doom that humanity cannot and will not solve the climate crisis....