Everyone I know is worried about climate change, yet many of them also feel powerless to do anything about it. It’s true that there are large systems at work that most individuals cannot directly influence. That the government policy that would transition us to a carbon neutral economy has not materialized. Still, these are not reasons to do nothing. The problem of climate change is a continuum. Every bit we do to control the amount of carbon in the atmosphere give us more time to improve, adapt and ultimately save lives.
Ok, so you want to fight climate change, but don’t know how. You recycle and honestly don’t know what else beyond that is in your power. First, keep recycling! Next, let me suggest some other, easy, things that could reduce your green house gas emissions by 40-70%;
Walking or cycling, avoiding long-haul flights, shifting to plant-based diets, cutting food waste, and using energy more efficiently in buildings are among the most effective demand-side mitigation options.
Lets break this down and translate each of those 5 categories into a couple actions you can take now.
“Walking or cycling”
This may be harder or easier depending on where you live. The real goal here is to use less gas. That means things like using public transit, car pooling (is that still a thing?) and getting a hybrid or electric car. It could also mean moving to a place where transit don’t require a trip in a private vehicle. Leaving that aside, people like getting around in private vehicles so here are the two ways do to that better:
- Get an electric bike. Folks love their ebikes. Get a cargo one and you can even do grocery trips. If you live in a place with side walks or bike paths having one of these is magical. You don’t have to fear hills, or getting sweaty. Rain & snow can still be problematic, but when the sun is out this is how to travel.
- Get an electric or hybrid car. The average car on the road gets 22mpg. A new Toyota Corolla Hybrid costs $25k and gets 53 MPG. If you have more to spend, all electric vehicles get closer to 100 eMPG.
“Avoiding long-haul flights”
No easy way around, flying is bad. It should be avoided. Sadly, solo trips in your private vehicle are no better. The real lesson here is that, unless you are on a bus, the way we travel is extremely carbon intensive. So yes, travel by bus and train if you can, and also;
- Stay for at least a week when you make long trips. This rule of thumb could lead you to think twice about making some trips. The longer you stay somewhere, the less often you can fly. Another way of thinking about it; when you do travel long distances, make it count.
- Take fewer flights. If you travel by air frequently that air travel dominates your carbon footprint. Do it less, and pursue alternatives, like taking a vacation in the nearby countryside instead of flying further afield.
“Shifting to plant-based diet”
Eating higher up the food chain is less efficient. The calories and protein you get from plants is significantly less carbon intensive than eating the same calories from animals. Still, all animals aren’t the same. Sure, ideally you’d go vegan, but in the meantime;
- Stay away from beef. It is by far the most carbon intensive meat to eat. If you crave burgers the beyond meat and impossible burger stuff is a pretty great now.
- Keep eating pork, chicken and fish (if you do already), just not every day. It’s OK to focus on immediate meaningful change that stops short of getting all your protein from lentils and insects.
“Cutting food waste”
This one is a little weird, why should we care about the food I don’t eat? Because producing and transporting that food to your table generates emissions. When that wasted food gets to the landfill it decomposes anaerobically and generates a bunch of methane. The solutions here are to avoid emissions for something you don’t eat & keep unavoidable food waste from turning into methane. In an ideal world we’d eat local from producers who run carbon-negative operations and live in municipalities with residential composting operations, but until then;
- Eat those leftovers. Can be something of a lifestyle change, but is cheap, simple & effective. Not always possible, no matter how hard I try, sometimes food goes bad.
- Get a compost service. They cost ~$30/month and using amazing equipment that dwarf the capabilities of your backyard composting setup. At a landfill, emissions from your rotting food would be about half carbon dioxide and half methane. Composting dramatically reduces that methane component, like to near 0.
“Using energy more efficiently in buildings”
I suspect this is generically phrased because it can mean a whole bunch of things. I’m going to assume you’re already using LED light bulbs (if some incandescent bulbs have inexplicably survived in your home, replace them now) and have insulation in your dwelling. A warning about this category, if you don’t own your home there is less you can do. You can (maybe) finesse your thermostat, or put plastic over any windows you don’t ever open, but options are limited. Also, these things are expensive, still they’re expenses with decade plus lifespans.
- If you have a gas furnace replace it with a heat pump. Using natural gas, aka methane, for heat is ~90% efficient and depends on a vast & leaky network of pipes to pump a greenhouse gas to your home. Which you then burn indoors. The other option is a heat pump which is 300% efficient, runs on electricity and also you basically have one anyhow, because it’s literally an air conditioner that is reversible.
- Consider a hybrid water heater. These are electric units that use heat pump & conventional electric heating to warm the water, hence hybrid. They can be noisy and do “steal” heat from wherever they’re installed, but they’re 2-3x more efficient than conventional water heaters.
Climate change means we’re all going to have to change how we live. We can choose to make changes proactively, with an intent to help. But some change is going to come regardless. These are steps anyone can take now to get ahead of the curve and, if enough of us do it, make the bigger changes less drastic.
If you see anything on this list that seems easy, Do it! While change slow to come from government, that does not prevent you and I from making meaningful change now.