An interesting exercise to take this quiz that explores the results of Project Drawdown. It is interesting to compare my interests and biases against an actual study. For example, I am a huge proponent of nuclear energy and I think it's one of the best renewable resources out there. I am interested to dive deeper into this study to find out why they found wind farms to be more effective.
I was also surprised that managing chemicals is the number one issue overall as I originally thought that curbing human behavior and consumption would hit the number one spot, although in hindsight it makes perfect sense why chemicals would have such a bigger impact in the end.
In terms of particular design lessons and takeaways, the "Our homes and cities" section is particularly telling from the architectural point of view, although I personally do not agree with the direction that it would take design if designers were told to follow "these four principles". The results were to 1) increase use of LED light bulbs, 2) design more walkable spaces, 3) use smart thermostats and 4) install green roofs. I don't have a problem with most of these, and they are good solutions, but individually and even take all together, they do not form a very good design solution.
I don't think any of these solutions truly capture the need to re-evaluate how building come to be sustainable and healthy in nature. In fact, I am very interested in finding ways to incorporate nature back into building, either through thermostats that can mimic the environment, or dynamic architectural facades like green facades (or roofs I suppose). Some of the solutions presented here are very short term. LED lightbulbs are just a band-aid that doesn't get at the core of the problem: which is designing buildings and spaces that are better for humans.
In the end, of course, the quiz was meant to illustrate the results of the study, not to create a new design code, so taking these as design inputs would be insufficient because so much other information is missing, especially because there is no initial design problem presented. Overall, though, it's good to learn what the most efficiencies in terms of climate change are considered to be today and to optimize that whenever designers have a chance.
The results of my quiz are here:
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