Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now

by John Doerr, Ryan Panchadsaram Narrated by John Doerr, Sundar Pichai, Margot Brown, Badri Kothandaraman, Bruce Nilles, Jagdeep Singh, Laurene Powell Jobs, Jan Van Dokkum, Christiana Figueres, Fred Krupp

Overview

#1 bestselling author and acclaimed venture capitalist John Doerr reveals a sweeping action plan to conquer humanity's greatest challenge: climate change.

In 2006, John Doerr was moved by Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and a challenge from his teenage daughter: “Dad, your generation created this problem. You better fix it.” Since then, Doerr has searched for solutions to this existential problem-as an investor, an advocate, and a philanthropist.

Fifteen years later, despite breakthroughs in batteries, electric vehicles, plant-based proteins, and solar and wind power, global warming continues to get worse. Its impact is all around us: droughts, floods, wildfires, the melting of the polar ice caps. Our world is squarely in a climate crisis and on the brink of a climate disaster.

Yet despite our state of emergency, climate change has yet to be tackled with the urgency and ambition it demands. More than ever, we need a clear course of action.

What if the goal-setting techniques that powered the rise of today's most innovative organizations were brought to bear on humanity's greatest challenge? Fueled by a powerful tool called Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), SPEED & SCALE offers an unprecedented global plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions before it's too late. Used by Google, Bono's ONE foundation, and thousands of startups the world over, OKRs have scaled ideas into achievements that changed the world. With clear-eyed realism and an engineer's precision, Doerr identifies the measurable OKRs we need to reduce emissions across the board and to arrive by 2050 at net zero-the point where we are no longer adding to the heat-trapping carbon in the atmosphere.

By turns pragmatic and inspiring, SPEED & SCALE intersperses Doerr's wide-ranging analysis with firsthand accounts from Jeff Bezos, Christiana Figueres, Al Gore, Mary Barra, Bill Gates, and other intrepid policy leaders, entrepreneurs, scientists, and activists. A launchpad for those who are ready to act now, this book is geared to leaders in every walk of life. With a definitive action plan, the latest science, and a rising climate movement on our side, we can still reach net zero before it is too late. But as Doerr reminds us, there is no more time to waste.


* This audiobook includes a downloadble PDF of images and charts from the book.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This book is a critical blueprint for anyone looking to take concrete steps to reach net-zero emissions. Unlike many who simply issue ambiguous long-dated pledges to help solve the climate crisis, John Doerr understands the urgent need to ACT quickly and decisively. With Speed & Scale, he combines his extensive experience as a legendary technology expert and investor with his tried-and-true management methods to put forward a clear, detailed, and comprehensive plan for climate action exactly when we need it most.” 
- Al Gore, former U.S. Vice President

"John Doerr is a man with a plan for our planet – and boy do we need one. Keep away if you don’t think commerce can play a creative role… or want deep dive analytics from someone who is always measuring what matters. He matters."
- Bono

"John Doerr is the world’s leading mind on turning truly audacious goals into objectives and key results. In this culminating contribution, he performs an inspired act of world leadership: plying his craft to create a comprehensive plan to tackle one of the most vexing challenges in human history."
- Jim Collins, author of Good to Great and Built to Last

"With personal insight and visionary foresight, Doerr provides us with a practical guide for both public and private sector participation in decarbonizing the global economy, a task as challenging as it is urgent." 
- Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the UN Climate Change Convention
 
"Speed & Scale is critical reading for anyone who wants to take action on the most important issue of our time: climate change. It's a challenge that feels impossible to solve, but John Doerr outlines a clear path forward and how we can get involved to make an impact."
- Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube

“A practical path in the fight against climate change... Doerr approaches the problem as a hard-nosed businessman who sees an opportunity, creates a plan, and organizes resources before moving ahead... crafts a specific, comprehensible description of the elements that contribute to climate change and what needs to be done... guided by ingenious illustrations and often startling facts.”
- Kirkus Reviews

“Meaningfully reducing carbon emissions will take big, bold moves and small, meaningful changes. In Speed & Scale, John provides a clear and compelling plan that can help any company embrace sustainability as an innovation opportunity and make it a foundational corporate value.”
- Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google and Alphabet

“Urgent action is needed to solve the climate crisis, which is felt more acutely, by more people, every day. Speed & Scale lays out a tangible and comprehensive action plan on how to tackle the climate crisis and secure a livable planet for future generations.”
- Henrik Poulsen, former CEO of Orsted

“In Speed & Scale, John shifts the climate conversation from the abstract to the specific. This book is a tactical plan for what solving climate change actually entails. Executing this will undoubtedly be hard, but a plan makes the problem tractable.”
- Nan Ransohoff, Head of Climate at Stripe

Kirkus Reviews

2021-09-15
A venture capitalist and a host of relevant contributors lay down a practical path in the fight against climate change.

The book features firsthand accounts from Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Al Gore, Mary Barra, and other big names in the “cleantech” world. Doerr warns that even in the unlikely event that nations keep their pledges from the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world will still be more than four degrees hotter by 2100, a global catastrophe. Experts agree on the critical importance of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and getting halfway there by 2030. Doerr approaches the problem as a hard-nosed businessman who sees an opportunity, creates a plan, and organizes resources before moving ahead. Using this approach and prose that is superior to many similar books, the author crafts a specific, comprehensible description of the elements that contribute to climate change and what needs to be done. Six chapters propose six solutions. Few will surprise readers (“Electrify Transportation,” “Clean Up Industry,” “Protect Nature,” “Remove Carbon”), although “Fix Food” requires major changes in agriculture as well as our diet, cooking, and waste disposal. Throughout, readers are guided by ingenious illustrations and often startling facts—e.g., China and the U.S. rank No. 1 and No. 2 in greenhouse gas production, followed by the world’s 1 billion cows. The concluding four chapters describe how to meet zero emissions. “We need a quantum leap in speed and scale,” writes the author, “unprecedented sums on a very tight schedule...as much as $1.7 trillion each year—and we’ll need to go full throttle for twenty years or more.” While acknowledging obstacles, Doerr points out that the world is moving in the right direction. Governments (China and the EU if not the U.S.) have approved green policies with definite goals, and mass movements have persuaded innumerable businesses to promise zero emissions—whether they deliver will be critical. Entrepreneurs are paying attention. In January 2021, their clean technology investments exceeded the total for all of 2015.

Yet another prospective solution to climate change, but one of the most feasible.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176987058
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	11/09/2021
Edition description:	Unabridged

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