On this page, you will find the introductory materials for Project Drawdown, how to organize your four levels of action, and where to learn more information to aid you in your role to help reverse global warming.

(Last Update: June 2021)


Want to learn more? Read on…

Project Drawdown Resources:
The original 2017 book – Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming
In the face of widespread fear and apathy, an international coalition of researchers, professionals, and scientists have came together to offer a set of realistic and bold solutions to climate change. You can borrow the book at the library, buy the book at Amazon, Walmart, Barnes and Noble, and find out more on the Drawdown website. You can find the original Frequently asked Questions (FAQ) document for this work herewhich provides a great overview for the original work.
Drawdown.org web site
The world’s leading resource on climate solutions. This is where you will find the latest up to date information on solutions which are in-hand and if scaled up over the next few decades can reverse global warming due to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. There are lots of ways to discover solutions now. For example, you can look at all solutions or discover them based on sectors or sort based on the two drawdown scenarios.
The Drawdown Review 2020: Climate Solutions for a New Decade
This is the digital (PDF file) update to the original book with updated information and modelling. It is focused on solutions we have now where the book had a section called “Coming Attractions” which are promising solutions but not yet proven to be deployed at scale. There is a new framework with solutions focused on Reducing Sources, Supporting Sinks, and Improving Society organized into the following sectors: Electricity, Food Agriculture & Land Use, Industry, Transportation, Buildings, Land Sinks, Ocean Sinks, Engineered Sinks, and Health & Education. You can download this document on home page of the Drawdown web site or download directly from here.
Here are some other helpful documents which summarize solutions and key takeaways from the Drawdown Review:
Solutions with a brief description of each
Key insights from the 2020 update
Solutions by sector (taken from the complete review)
Drawdown solutions spreadsheet
This is a spreadsheet to make it easy for you to sort based on name or rank as well as filter based on sectors. It includes links to each of the solutions (with brief descriptions) and sectors on the Drawdown website and is available as a Microsoft Excel file or Google sheet. Note: These spreadsheets are read-only so if you want to edit them on your local machine, simply save a copy.
Drawdown Programs & Partnerships
Below are a list of great organizations that the Project Drawdown team has collaborated with in their solutions.
Drawdown Learn. Drawdown Learn is a broad initiative to encourage education and learning about climate solutions based on Project Drawdown’s research, analysis, and insights. Featured partners: Drawdown Ecochallenge, Omega Institute, NCSE Global (Drawdown USA)and Solutions Journalism Network
Partnerships. Collaborations focused on specific initiatives that promote broad public education and engagement around the Drawdown framework. Partners include Nurses Drawdown, Climatebase (formerly Climate.Careers), Global Cooling Prize, and TED Countdown.


Polling and Quizzes
CNN and Project Drawdown’s Climate Quiz.
The most effective ways to curb climate change might surprise you. To reduce our impact on the climate and avert disaster, it’s going to take more than switching to high-efficiency light bulbs. But the most effective ways that individuals, policymakers and businesses can reduce our carbon footprint might surprise you. Let’s see how much you know about what can be done to fight climate change.
Yale Climate Opinion Maps. (Interactive)
These maps show how Americans’ climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and policy support vary at the state, congressional district, metro area, and county levels. Get Yale Climate Communications latest reports here.
Global Warming’s Six Americas.
One of the first rules of effective communication is to “know thy audience.” Climate change public engagement efforts must start with the fundamental recognition that people are different and have different psychological, cultural, and political reasons for acting – or not acting – to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. NOTE: You can find the latest survey information here and messaging strategies for the six Americas here.
Six America’s Quiz. Take the quiz to find out are you Alarmed, Concerned, Cautious, Disengaged, Doubtful, or Dismissive.
For strategies of how to invite various audiences into the discussion related to global warming, here are some additional recommendations:
Jonathan Haidt’s work on the moral foundations that drive our attitudes and behaviors:
YourMorals.org. Welcome to YourMorals.org, where you can learn about your own morality, ethics, and/or values, while also contributing to scientific research. We are a group of professors and graduate students in social psychology.
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt challenges conventional thinking about morality, politics, and religion in a way that speaks to conservatives and liberals alike in this New York Times bestselling “landmark contribution to humanity’s understanding of itself” (The New York Times Book Review).
Renee Lertzman, PhD on How to Turn Climate Anxiety into Action.
Project Inside Out. We have launched this Hub with an invitation for the climate campaigning community to self-assess our theories of change and to shift our mind sets and skill sets toward Guiding. This is less of a methodology as a set of robust, flexible and powerful Guiding Principles. Within each Guiding Principle are applications for your work, whether it informs how you understand your stakeholders and members, or designing your entire engagement strategy. Our hope is that this is taken as a holistic approach, and you experiment and practice with each other and colleagues.
Towards 2040 – A Motivational Discussion. Damon reached out to Dr Renee four years ago when he started research for ‘2040’, keen to understand the psychology of apathy and disengagement when it comes to our biggest environmental and social challenges and to understand what can keep us buoyed, engaged and motivated to positive action. This conversation with Dr Renee inspired the solutions-focussed narrative of ‘2040’ and new ways to communicate the opportunity that the climate movement presents as we learn more about creativity, resilience, and problem-solving than ever before.
How to talk to someone who does not believe in climate change.
Not every conversation with a climate denier has to lead to raised voices and hurt feelings. Here’s how to do it constructively.
Want to Learn More?
Check out our Events and Resources information page to learn more.
Also, don’t miss Climate Central’s write-up and media resources on the Pacific Northwest’s historic heat wave in 2021.
Earth picture by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash