{"id":61635,"date":"2018-04-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-04-10T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/newsroom\/2018\/04\/10\/livegreen-drawdown-ecochallenge\/"},"modified":"2022-09-02T20:45:19","modified_gmt":"2022-09-03T01:45:19","slug":"livegreen-drawdown-ecochallenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/newsroom\/2018\/04\/10\/livegreen-drawdown-ecochallenge\/","title":{"rendered":"LiveGreen: Drawdown EcoChallenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you aren’t a sustainability geek, it’s likely the release of “Drawdown” didn’t hit your radar. <\/p>\n


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\n<\/TABLE>“Drawdown”<\/a> was a landmark book that used immense amounts of data, peer-reviewed research, models and maps to determine the impact a variety of known solutions to global warming, centered around carbon reduction.<\/p>\n

The authors predicted not only the global impact but also the cost to implement, as well as the economic savings, where applicable. <\/p>\n

It’s probably not surprising that of the 100 solutions to reverse global warming, No. 2 is wind turbines and No. 8 is solar farms. The surprise may be that management of refrigerants is ranked No. 1. <\/p>\n

Would it surprise you to know that No. 5 and No. 6 on the list are “education of girls” and “family planning?” Those stats caught a lot of attention, not only because these are atypical responses to climate change, but also because by combining their impact, they easily become No. 1 on the list.<\/p>\n

Lots of solutions made the list, such as LED bulbs, silvopasturing<\/a>, mass transit, land management, methane digesters and more. <\/p>\n

Most can be accomplished or influenced by everyone — no engineering or sustainability degree required. Some strategies are more applicable to specific areas of the world and\/or can only be implemented in specific conditions, but all are capable of being implemented now. There’s no need to wait on future technology to be invented.<\/p>\n

In the interest of starting to put these items into action, the Northwest Earth Institute has created the “Drawdown EcoChallenge,” a 21-day engagement program taking place between April 4-25, following the solutions highlighted in the book.<\/p>\n

Ready to join the med center team<\/a>?<\/p>\n

The UNMC\/Nebraska Medicine community can sign up for free, track\/share progress online and earn points. Points help to compete against other groups while giving participants chances to earn prizes. Participants can select as many actions as they want, ranging from replacing an incandescent bulb with a LED bulb, to watching a video on indigenous land management, using mass transit, or pledging to spend a specific amount of time learning about a topic. There are more than 80 actions to pick from in seven different categories:<\/p>\n