What I’m excited about at Project Drawdown is taking the next step and helping to formulate those solutions in a way they can really easily be implemented to achieve climate and other goals at the same time. For the last 13 years I’ve been in a somewhat academic world defining what problems are in the land use sector, particularly with agriculture, and showing how big the impact is and looking at what some solutions could look like and what sectors and regions they could be most effective in, but those were not necessarily actionable. Project Drawdown is really focused on making solutions happen. Q: When people ask what you do with Project Drawdown, what do you tell them?Ī: I haven't been here very long, so my answer is based on what I think I’ll be doing and why I was so excited to get this job.

Here, James explains how he got from wave physics to climate change mitigation, trash talks American drivers, avoids sharing his favorite drawdown solution, and nails the answer to the most important question ever asked. in physics from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He was a lead author for the Sixth Assessment Report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and has consulted on a wide variety of projects for nongovernmental organizations, including The Nature Conservancy, The Packard Foundation, and The World Bank.īefore he started researching land use, James worked on optimizing conversion of wave energy to electricity. He uses various analytic techniques to assess the effect of climate mitigation solutions in the land use sector.Īs a researcher with the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, James studied connections among agriculture, ecosystems, climate, and food security.

James Gerber is a data scientist with expertise in agriculture, impacts of land use on the environment, modeling of crop yields, and ocean wave energy. This article is the third in a series introducing the members of Project Drawdown’s new science team.

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