10 Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
That can make a real difference.
If you are like me, you struggle with trying to lower your carbon footprint. You compost, you recycle, you may have even gone vegan. Still, you look for other ways you can reduce your impact on the world.
Code Red for Humanity
Maybe you’re not like me and you have done little to reduce your footprint because you don’t think it will make a difference, but since the recent IPCC report came out that said, “We are in a code red,” perhaps you are trying a little harder and want to know how you can make the biggest difference without it costing too much or taking up too much of your time.
You may have heard that just 100 companies create 71% of CO2 emissions. So it may seem like this makes your carbon footprint irrelevant, but it doesn’t. While it’s true that 71% of global emissions comes from 100 companies, some of which come from the research, production, and transport of their products. What that statistic doesn’t tell you is that our consumption also comprises that number. So if we reduce our demand for their product the amount they emit will go down as well.
Why Your Carbon Footprint Matters
Yes, BP took the idea of a carbon footprint and promoted it to deflect from their culpability, but again, this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t matter. A society is made up of individuals, and individual actions resonate throughout the collective. Your choices affect the choices of others. So solving the climate crisis requires us to reduce our carbon footprint by reducing our consumption, but we also need to lobby our corporations and governments for systemic changes.
1. Call, tweet, petition and email your government representatives- The Citizens Climate Lobby gives you the tools to contact your congressional representative and tells you what to say to demand a carbon tax and dividend. This would tax the fossil fuel industry for its pollution while offsetting the costs to the public by sending out dividend checks.
While you may be tempted to just tweet, email, or sign a petition, an ex-Congressional staffer told the New York Times calls are harder to ignore and more impactful.
2. Divest from fossil fuels and ask that your bank to do the same- Between 2016 and 2020, the 60 biggest commercial banks lent 3.8 trillion dollars to the fossil fuel industry. If you bank at one of them, you can begin by divesting your savings, investments, and checking account away from them and moving them into one that is divesting from fossil fuels. CNBC has compiled a list of both types. Aspiration is a bank that not only doesn’t invest in fossil fuels but helps reforest the planet.
3. Have fewer children-This is the single biggest way you can make an impact in your personal life. A 2017 study showed that this reduced your CO2 footprint by an average of 58.6 tons per year when accounting for the footprint of your children and their children.
By comparison, the next biggest CO2 reduction you could take is going car-free, which would save 2.4 tons per year. A Cornell study put a sustainable population at 2 billion people, which means we are almost 6 billion over that already. If you want to have children, have just one and then adopt the others.
4. Replace your gas stove with an instant pot and induction burners- Stoves that burn natural gas leak methane, a greenhouse gas that is 20 times stronger than CO2 for holding in heat. These leaks come from the connection between the canister and the hose, so they happen regardless if you are cooking or not.
When you are cooking with natural gas, it releases volatile organic compounds that can cause respiratory problems such as asthma and decreased lung function in both children and adults.
5. Use soap nuts to replace your cleaning products–These can replace a bevy of cleaning products, are cheap, sustainably grown, and best of all, they are palm oil-free. Palm oil plantations are one of the major contributing causes to the deforestation of tropical forests, which are a carbon sink, and one of the most biodiverse places on the planet.
6. Go on a responsible whale watching trip–Whales are called the ocean’s pump. Because when they feed, they bring nutrients from the bottom of the ocean to the top by excreting poo (aka doodie or caca), which is full of nitrogen and phosphorus. Tiny marine plants called plankton feed on this and sequester and store about 25% of global CO2 emissions. By paying to watch whales in the wild, you are helping to protect them and allowing them to continue fertilizing the ocean. To find a responsible operator, you can look for the Whale Sense logo.
7. Stop buying bottled water and buy a water filter -It takes three times the amount of water to make a single bottle than drinking from the tap when you account for the production of oil to make the bottle and the processing and transportation of it.
We use 100 million plastic bottles every day around the world. This requires oil to produce the plastic, and then those heavy bottles are transported across the country. The CO2 footprint for 1.5 liters is about 200 grams per bottle.
The average household that drinks bottled water will consume about 800 bottles per year, which translates to 350 lbs (160 kg) of CO2 or the equivalent of driving 368 miles (592 km) with a car. Filtered tap water is also healthier than bottled water, as it contains fewer microplastics.
8. Don’t buy carbon offsets instead, support indigenous rights–Carbon offsets are when you are asked to check a little box when booking a flight that asks if you want to offset your CO2 emissions by planting trees.
It sounds like a good idea, but most carbon offset schemes don’t work and can cause more damage than good. In most cases, the trees don’t survive more than a few years; they are on a monoculture plantation that lacks biodiversity, and there have been recorded cases where indigenous people have been thrown off their land in favor of the tree-planting scheme.
They are another form of greenwashing, which allows corporations to continue to pollute. If you are interested in protecting forests and reducing your CO2 Footprint, support the fight for Indigenous rights. Studies show that these groups act as stewards of the land and where they live, biodiversity thrives. So the next time you want to offset your carbon footprint, donate to the Pachamama Alliance instead.
9. Shop at your farmer’s market- Our food system causes $12 trillion worth of damage per year to nature and our health. When you are shopping at a farmer’s market, you are purchasing locally made produce, meaning it didn’t need to be transported across the country to get you.
According to the Farmer’s Market Coalition, small farmers are more likely to use sustainable practices that rejuvenate the land, rather than the industrial practices that destroy it the way corporate farms do.
10. Feed your pet bug-based pet food-Pets consume about 20% of all meat globally. Besides having a substantially lower CO2 footprint, it’s estimated that insect-based pet foods use 2% of the land and 4% of the water per pound of protein than a beef-based one does. According to the British Veterinary Association, insects are healthier for your pets than beef is.
