Riffing on a theme

Marie is joining Inktober. It’s a personal mission for committing to drawing each day of October. Someone has generated a theme or catalyzing word for each day of the month, and participants make ink creations starting from that word. You can read more about it here. (Is the website still down? Try the Twitter feed?) I won’t be joining, since drawing doesn’t bring me much joy: usually I scribble some stuff and then Marie makes it sensible. I thought that I could modify the idea of Inktober to find a different route for fulfilling promises to myself of daily creation.

When Marie and I are making designs, one typical method for us to turn our oral ideas into serial sketches. For the Soldrevet logo, for example, we pulled out scrap paper during a hiking trip and started scribbling. I had thoughts that Marie modified into pencil sketches. When we got home I built a series of digital versions, playing with font, style, detail, aspect ratios, color, and so forth. I’ve read in the past that group brainstorming is pretty much garbage, whereas what I’ll call an individual’s “riffing on a theme” can be fruitful.

I will modify Inktober for my purposes. Because Soldrevet supports the humans behind sustainable development, I’m going to make art using as inspiration the Project Drawdown list of solutions for drawing down atmospheric CO₂ concentration. I want to highlight the human side, so no drawings of solar panels and windmills and electric cars. The list includes 82 solutions. I’ve sent that list through my favorite randomization system to give me 31, one for each day of October. My pruned list is at the end of the post.

I keep coming back to the Project Drawdown website for a bunch of reasons. Each time I return, I learn something new. Something about the world, about me, about possibilities for the future. Today I got a running start on October Riffing: I took the full list of 82 solutions, assigned their CO₂ savings to the sectors they represent, and made a pie chart.

The fun part is that when one solution fits into two sectors, plotting by sector takes more than 360°. Imagine you work in Health and Education. In the spiraling pie chart, you can see that Health and Education constitute 9% of the identified CO₂ savings in the years 2020-2050. You can see from this spiral representation how your chosen passion complements the broader suite of solutions, but not how it overlaps with other sectors.

The spiral pie chart is my first experiment in October Riffing. I didn’t give myself too much time for revamping. I didn’t take too much time to know where I was headed before I started walking. Design in Adobe Illustrator, editorial consultation from Outspoken Images. Scan my Graphic Design page and hire us to make your next scientific artwork.

Date	Solution	Sector(s)	2° Scenario*	1.5° Scenario*
01 October	Tree Intercropping	Land Sinks	15.03	24.4
02 October	Electric Bicycles	Transportation	1.31	4.07
03 October	Biochar Production	Engineered Sinks	2.22	4.39
04 October	Net-Zero Buildings	Electricity / Buildings
05 October	Building Retrofitting	Electricity / Buildings
06 October	Telepresence	Transportation	1.05	3.8
07 October	Low-Flow Fixtures	Electricity / Buildings	0.91	1.56
08 October	Composting	Industry	2.14	3.13
09 October	Nuclear Power	Electricity	2.65	3.23
10 October	Bamboo Production	Land Sinks	8.27	21.31
11 October	Bicycle Infrastructure	Transportation	2.56	6.65
12 October	Plant-Rich Diets	Food, Agriculture, and Land Use / Land Sinks	65.01	91.72
13 October	Temperate Forest Restoration	Land Sinks	19.42	27.85
14 October	Onshore Wind Turbines	Electricity	47.21	147.72
15 October	Landfill Methane Capture	Electricity / Industry	2.18	-1.6
16 October	Micro Wind Turbines	Electricity	0.09	0.13
17 October	Coastal Wetland Protection	Food, Agriculture, and Land Use / Coastal and Ocean Sinks	0.99	1.45
18 October	Tree Plantations (on Degraded Land)	Land Sinks	22.24	35.94
19 October	Alternative Cement	Industry	7.98	16.1
20 October	Building Automation Systems	Electricity / Buildings	6.47	10.48
21 October	Silvopasture	Land Sinks	26.58	42.31
22 October	Refrigerant Management	Industry / Buildings	57.75	57.75
23 October	Biomass Power	Electricity	2.52	3.57
24 October	High-Efficiency Heat Pumps	Electricity / Buildings	4.16	9.29
25 October	Biogas for Cooking	Buildings	4.65	9.7
26 October	Smart Thermostats	Electricity / Buildings	6.99	7.4
27 October	Regenerative Annual Cropping	Food, Agriculture, and Land Use / Land Sinks	14.52	22.27
28 October	Sustainable Intensification for Smallholders	Food, Agriculture, and Land Use / Land Sinks	1.36	0.68
29 October	Recycling	Industry	5.5	6.02
30 October	Reduced Food Waste	Food, Agriculture, and Land Use / Land Sinks	87.45	94.56
31 October	Distributed Solar Photovoltaics	Electricity	27.98	68.64