Welcome to the Zero Carbon Playbook!

This is a newsletter by Rezwan Razani, founder of Footprint to Wings (“fp2w”). Author of the forthcoming Zero Carbon Playbook, for people who want to Go. All. The. Way. To zero carbon and beyond. To solve the climate predicament now; Play by Play, Increment to Endgame. With metrics that matter, like the "First Gigawatt Down,” the “NIMBY Coefficient” and “Quality of Life.”

Are you ready to deal, once and for all, with your carbon emissions?

Your own emissions, your State’s emissions, your worlds emissions!

Are you ready to upgrade the world? Ready to swap your old planet-plundering Footprints for state-of-the-art, planet-proliferating Wings? Sign up right now and start getting the knowhow and inspiration you need.

Not sure you’re ready? I believe in you! Take a chance. Sign up anyway. You are always free to unsubscribe.

Heads up, this newsletter is a window on the actual Zero Carbon Playbook in progress: the ultimate user friendly climate solutions playbook for Any Given Player and their various Teams (like household, company, school, city, state…). Sign up right now for front row seats as we workshop the book in real time. Get coached. And coach us back! Your feedback is a key part of the process.

You will have a chance to shape the finished Playbook through your splendid, candid feedback & support.

There’s a lot of noise out there about climate change and climate solutions. We’re here to zero in on the signal. Cut to the chase. Bring that overwhelm down to size with a potent mix of Rules & Improv. Because that’s the best way to tackle an overwhelming problem and unleash effective systems thinking.

Rules & Improv. Rigor & Play.

And we’re all about being rigorous yet playful. Rigorous because we do the math & connect it to the maps. Playful because, at its core, the Race to Zero Carbon is a game. The stakes are high. Serious life and death stakes. But essentially, it’s a game. And paradoxically, it’s easier to succeed when you approach it like a game. As Coach Schell says, “a game is a problem-solving activity, approached with a playful attitude.”

Since we have to solve this wicked problem anyway - may as well have fun and make friends doing it!

It’s time to Play!

There are a lot of environmentalists trying to figure out the best strategy for motivating people to act on climate.

  • Some go with “hope and optimism,” others with “doom and fear.”

  • Some with “gentle tips on little things you can do” others with “righteous anger.”

  • Some with “duty” others with “self interest.”

  • Some with “Moonshot” others with “War Mobilization.”

All good stuff, but our approach is to turn the Race to Zero Carbon into a National Pastime. Literally. And then coach each State to win.

When you take a National Pastime + Coaching approach, you do several important things. You leverage both competition and cooperation in the structure of the League. You bring needed focus to strategy and systems thinking for the “getting to zero carbon” game itself. And you empower Any Given Player to their personal best.

Motivation is important but the truth is, any given person, Any Given Player, has their own unique motivation, which they have to unlock for themselves before they can be fully present to any given endeavor.

Plus, you can have all the motivation in the world, but no idea what to actually do out there on the field. You can be “All Force and No Vector” as Coach Aaron used to say.

Whatever your motivation, YOU are the Player! Your State is your team as a whole. And between You and your State are all kinds of Specialized Teams, like your household, company, city, county that have to be coordinated. And the motivation has to be aligned up and down the chain to be effective. Did I mention, this is a super wicked problem? Fraught with all kinds of conflicts of interest and shadow motivations and coordination complexity? All these things and more will be explored, as needed, on the way to zero carbon! Buckle up.

More Info About Us

Oh hey! You want more information about us? Cool.

More ways we differ from & coach others.

Check out the latest edition

Subscription Options

Zero Carbon Playbook is available for free to anyone who wants to read it: I’m doing all I can to get the word out. To recruit and prepare Players for this ultimate real world, multi player game. The planet is on the line, and I have vowed to do all I can to get Team Earth up to speed. Feel free to sign up for the free edition now and consider upgrading down the line.

Consider becoming a full paid subscriber!

OK, this newsletter is free. Does it make sense to pay for it? Why yes! Because when you become a paid subscriber you become a Sponsor! A Patron! A Subsidiser! An Empowerer! Your largesse makes the coaching happen and gets it out there to the Players what need it.

Is that cool or what?!

On top of warm feeling of largesse, we are considering other perks of being a member. Such as,

  • Special Thanks in the Zero Carbon Playbook. We plan to credit all the supporters with a big thank you when the book is published!

  • A guarantee that fp2w Zero Carbon Playbook remains ad-free, forever. Wait! Can I guarantee that? First, how can I guarantee it will even be around forever? Ideally, we solve the problem in a few short years, and then retire this thing. “Forever” is a long time. Also - I wasn’t going to run ads anyway, so it’s an odd thing to promise. Oh, I see how this works. What are some other things I was going to do or not do anyway that I could retroactively guarantee? I could list them here and call it a perk. Marketing. What shady shenanigans.

  • Full access to commenting. Please know you can always send me feedback by simply replying to the newsletter you get in your email inbox. That’s free. But hey! It turns out something I can restrict is who can comment and join the forums. Apparently exclusion is a way one to monetize things. Speech is free, but the forums are excludable spaces. Not sure how I feel about this, but the other kids with newsletters are doing it. I shall consider it. But is it the most effective way to further the mission? Feedback welcome.

  • Access to new member features as soon as they come. Suggestions, please! For now it looks like “Largesse” and credit in the book is what we’ve got here : )

All for $7 per month, or 16.6 percent off when you buy an annual subscription.

About Rezwan

I’m a writer, planner, game designer and the founder of Footprint to Wings, an organization dedicated to turning the “Race to Zero Carbon” into a national pastime. The story of how I came to this problem and solution set is captured in this interview.

Ed Cred: I have a BA in Environmental Science from UC Berkeley and a Master of Regional Planning (MRP) from Cornell University. Not too shabby! Also, I taught regional planning at Shiraz University in Shiraz, Iran; and started a business to produce Persian-English word games in Los Angeles. In my spare time, I ponder & putter. A lot of things. More than I have bandwidth for. More about that one of these days.

Oh! Another fun fact. I’m a living organ donor dedicated to a great quality of life for all. I believe people are capable of extraordinary individual and collective achievements.

What are people saying about Footprint to Wings?

Apparently, it’s important to get endorsements from people about your work. Helps other people see, that other people have seen, and approved, and…there’s a whole feedback loop of social proof. So I best start gathering those endorsements. Here are a few I’ve gotten so far.

I’m most proud of this comment from David MacKay, a hero of mine, a giant among zero carbon coaches. The following tweet came after a series of conversations kicked off by my need to nail down the value of the w/m2 for solar and I am herewith listing it as an endorsement.

I will cherish that tweet forever. PS, David’s book “Without Hot Air” (free to download on the web) is a major inspiration for our work. And check out his TED talk, “A reality check on renewables” which uses that w/m2 metric mentioned above. More posts about that issue coming soon. David passed away on April 14, 2016 from cancer. That’s just two months after the tweet. Indeed, to the very end, he was advancing energy solutions. “On April 10, just four days before his death, he posted an ‘open letter’ to the directors of Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge in which he wrote: ‘The hospital is a great one, the staff are wonderful, and I’m grateful for everything the NHS does for me here. But I do have just one impassioned question and plea... Why oh why oh why does [the hospital] not have any semblance of intelligent thermal environmental control?’”

His impact lives on, and we will continue doing the math in honor of David MacKay!


Another favorite, these props from @CityAtlas, who designed the fantastic Energetic board game, which is “about the future of New York City. This gives everyone the chance to see the scope of change and cooperation needed to transform the city’s energy demand and supply in time to meet goals for the Paris Agreement.” Here’s what he says about us:


But wait, there’s more!

Add yours to the mix!

If you are moved to leave a glowing review:

  • First of all, Thank You!

  • Second, email me at rezwan (at) fp2w (dot) com to let me know!

  • You can also tag me on twitter @footprint2wings with a tweet that I can embed here.

  • And do subscribe to our Youtube Channel, like the videos there and comment!

If you have criticisms or corrections (do check my math!), definitely email first so I can address the concerns and fix anything. And THEN leave the glowing review : ) Thanks again! Feedback is super important and is what helps make this work better.

You can also leave a review for the fp2w nonprofit at Great Nonprofits. Note that Footprint to Wings (“fp2w”) is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Our mission is to turn the Race to Zero Carbon into a national pastime, literally, and coach each state to win. Feel free to become a supporting member of Footprint to Wings with your tax deductible contributions.

Note that subscriptions to this newsletter are not tax deductible and go directly to Rezwan, the author, to support the writing of this newsletter.

What are you waiting for? Subscribe now!

Start walking to zero carbon.
You get heavier.
Then comes a moment
of feeling the wings you’ve grown,
Lifting.

- Rumi (slightly modified)

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PS. To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.

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Footprint to Wings is a 501c3 nonprofit whose mission is to turn the race to zero carbon into a national pastime and coach each state to win. Like the NFL, except the teams are States, and the game is climate solutions.