Everyone Has Suggestions For Carbon First Steps

Ten things you can do now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions:

1. Lights--Turn off lights when you aren't using them. Motion-sensitive switches can help. Replace incandescents with compact fluorescents.


2. Transport--Take fewer trips; combine trips. Drive easy (no need to roar away from the light). Drive at the most efficient speed on the highway (probably 55-65 miles per hour). Check tire pressures weekly. Observe service intervals. Substitute shared transport (bus, train, streetcar, carpool) for some trips.


3. Heating/Cooling--Set thermostat lower when heating, higher when cooling. Open windows when appropriate for fresh air rather than relying on air conditioning. Service heating and cooling equipment to maintain efficiency. Attend to weatherstripping, etc.


4. Reduce Waste--Keep things like paper and cardboard out of landfills by recycling (or just not using as much). Reduce use of paper in the office (print less; use both sides). Especially don't send food scraps, garden waste etc. to landfills. If your town doesn't collect them separately for composting, lobby to have them do so.


5. Government--Write your public officials--Let them know they should do something serious about greenhouse gas emissions. Inform yourself on the issue so they can't fool you.


6. Air Travel--Take fewer plane rides. Try not to take a plane for a trip less than 600 miles. Use web tools for some distance meetings.


7. Standby--Unplug power adapters and chargers when you aren't actually using them. Turn electronic devices all the way off by unplugging or turning off power strip. At least turn your monitor off when your computer is off (if you can see a little yellow light it is still sucking power).


8. ENERGY STAR--Look for the ENERGY STAR symbol when you buy new appliances or electronics.


9. Hot Water--Reduce your use of water heated with fossil fuels. This means washing clothes in cold water, fixing leaks, and taking shorter showers. Consider a low-flow shower head.


10. Meat--This one is more controversial, but livestock production does account for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions. Just reducing the amount of meat we eat could (beef especially) cut our carbon footprints by half a ton or more.

If you take action in these ten areas you probably can reduce your carbon footprint by 25%. That still leaves a lot more to go. Per-capita greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries have to decline by about 90%.

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tags: greenhouse, emissions, energy, carbon

A Better Carbon Calculator For Households

Try out this home carbon footprint calculator

This calculator has several advantages over others we have seen:

• It combines several sources of greenhouse gas emissions (home, food, vehicles, etc.) so you don't have to add them up manually.
• It is suitably "flashy".
• It tallies indirect as well as direct emissions.
  
• It provides instant comparison of your greenhouse gas impact with both the average American and the average Earthling.

Access the calculator here. Don't forget to come back.

The "U.S. Average" metric tons of CO₂ equivalent greenhouse gases shown at the bottom of the calculator (about 49 tonnes) is different from the 24 tonnes per capita CO₂e shown on our earlier calculator page. This Consumer Footprint Calculator figures emissions for the whole household (average 2.6 people). This is different from per capita (per individual).

This calculator will give you a different result from the "simple carbon footprint calculator" partly because it includes more activities (counting the carbon cost of food, for example). It also includes the indirect carbon costs of activities. So instead of just counting the CO₂ produced when you burn gasoline in your car, it also includes the equivalent of the greenhouse gasses emitted extracting and transporting the oil that gasoline was made from, refining it into gas, and transporting it to a gas station.

Here is a chart from a report by the developer of this calculator showing the importance of indirect emissions:


We are looking for better footprint calculators. Stay tuned.

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EPA fact sheet on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (pdf)

tags: carbon choices, greenhouse gas emissions, carbon footprint, residential, home, family, co2, climate change

You And Your Family Can Cut Carbon Emissions at Home

How you can cut your greenhouse gas output

There are many sites with lists of wonderful things you can do to reduce your personal carbon footprint. (Save and reuse shopping bags, for example.) Unfortunately many of those suggestions will make next to no difference at all in the quantity of greenhouse gases you and your family produce in and around your home. Recycling, for example, is fine--but it will make hardly any difference in your carbon footprint. You have got to do things that really matter.

The three steps toward a reduced-CO₂ home

1. Contact your representatives in national, regional and local government and make clear to them that you feel global climate disruption is a serious problem. Keep contacting them. Vote to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It's the only way. Do not neglect this vital step.
2. Do an energy audit of your home. Your utility can recommend an auditor or you can do it yourself with online tools like The Home Energy Saver. This will provide a baseline and suggest actions you can take.
   
3. Start making improvements. This is especially important when planning renovations or buying new appliances. The average home generates about four tonnes of CO₂ per person living there, but a lot depends on where it is and what kind of home it is (size, age, construction, multifamily or singlefamily etc.) You will probably be able to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions from your home by 10-30%.
   

Other things to consider

• Buy "green tags" to help fund the development of renewable power sources. This will not reduce your greenhouse gas emissions. It is more like a donation, a voluntary tax.
• Purchase "carbon offsets" to fund new power sources and mitigation projects. But these won't cut your CO₂ output.
  
• Check with your utility and see if you can pay a higher rate to encourage the development of additional renewable sources. Again, your carbon footprint remains the same. Here is a state-by-state list of such programs.
  
• Don't complain when utilities raise rates when "cap and trade" systems or carbon taxes are implemented. You will finally be paying closer to what the power you use costs the planet. You probably pay for garbage collection and sewer systems--why should you continue to use the atmosphere as a sewer for the CO₂ your power consumption entails? Making these costs explicit is what is going to help us avoid climate catastrophe.
• Think about eating less meat, especially beef and pork. I haven't done the math on this but the energy costs of raising and processing meat animals and transporting the meat to you is substantial. (One study suggested that the meat portion of the average American diet adds 1.5 tonnes of CO₂e compared to a vegetarian diet. I am looking into this more.)
• Realize that where you live and how big your home is has profound effects on your carbon footprint. A typical home in Cambridge, Mass., Des Moines, Iowa, or Phoenix, Arizona generates almost three times as much CO₂ as an average home in San Francisco.
  

Visualize a world in 2050 producing less than half the greenhouse gases we do today. Visualize developed countries producing 15% of what they emit today.

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tags: global warming, climate change, carbon choices, greenhouse gas emissions, co2, green, carbon footprint, residential, home, family

Simple Carbon Footprint Calculator

Estimate your greenhouse gas emissions

There are many carbon footprint calculators accessible on the web. It is best to use one customized for your country, state, or location. To be able to accurately estimate emissions for different locations, patterns of use, and utilities these calculators access extensive databases of energy prices, carbon intensity of energy production, typical energy use by households and other factors.

This is a simple calculator provided by Prairie Tree Project. It uses U.S. national averages and so gives rough approximations. We hope to have a more sophisticated calculator available soon, and calculators for businesses, commercial buildings and events.

Click here to go to calculator. It is too wide to fit this format.

Update: We have found a better, though more complicated calculator--see this post.

Now compare your emissions with those of others, and with the global per-capita targets we will have to reach by 2030.

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tag: carbon, carbon footprint, greenhouse gas emissions

It's Not Easy Going Green

What does "Green" mean?

There are lots of things people have tried or recommended to be more "green". Here is a short list with my comments.

Action	Climate Impact
Walk instead of drive	Significant
Use shared transport instead of driving alone	Significant
Buy a hybrid vehicle	Depends on what mileage it gets and how much you drive (and maybe on what you do with your old vehicle)
Recycle	Negligible? Has anyone done the math on this?
Use recycled products	Depends. Some recycled products could be as energy-intensive as virgin-raw-material products.
Install some CFLs	Helpful but not huge.
Live in California or somewhere where electricity rates have been decoupled	Significant--Californians use significantly less electricity per capita.
Buy carbon offsets	Dubious. Much debate. Impact probably minor. (Anybody have a way to evaluate this?)
Buy locally produced agricultural products	Depends. Distance is a poor measure of emissions per pound in transport. Also need to evaluate energy intensity of production. Roses grown in New York are much more energy intensive than those grown in Colombia, even counting transport (I think).
Use more ethanol (by buying a flex-fuel vehicle and fueling it with E85)	1. Depends on the mileage and use of the vehicle. E85 is still 15% gasoline. 2. Depends on where you are. Ethanol produced from maize in North America probably doesn't reduce greenhouse gas emissions much compared to gasoline. In Brazil using cane ethanol the benefit is clear.
Become a vegetarian	I don't know. Anyone done the math on this one?
Move to Manhattan	Significant. New York City is the most energy efficient city in North America, by some measures.

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tags: global warming, climate change, carbon choices, greenhouse gas emissions, CO₂, green