What You Can Do

Assuming Personal Responsibility

In Walt Kelly's comic strip Pogo, the sage possum observes "We have met the enemy and he is us." This is true about air pollution, stratospheric ozone depletion and climate change. We can't blame these problems on a handful of industrial villains. They are a byproduct of an industrial civilization from which we each daily derive benefit. In one instance, the protection of the stratospheric ozone layer that makes it possible for us to live above ground, we have seen dramatic action internationally to preserve this fragile shield. Even here the groundwork was laid in part by consumer action to buy substitutes for CFC spray cans just a few years after scientists identified the risks we faced.

It has taken much longer to summon up equal resolve to address air pollution and climate change, although great resources are now committed toward air quality protection. Yet, the sweeping changes that must occur if we are to stabilize greenhouse concentrations in our atmosphere will require a sea change in energy systems. Such change is not likely to happen by policy measures alone--it will require evidence that consumers are willing to buy cleaner technologies, use energy more efficiently and use mass transit alternatives when they are available.

Individual actions build markets for clean products enabling them to assume larger market shares and become price competitive; they also send a signal to public officials of public resolve. To that end you may want to use a Personal Environmental Impact Calculator to estimate the annual damage your and your family's actions have on the environment and examine ways you might lessen or offset this burden.

Among the options to reduce emissions are purchases of green power in places where consumers can make such a choice, such as Green Mountain.

Transportation

Other options include the purchase of gas electric hybrid vehicles available now not only from two car firms, Honda (Accord and Civic) and Toyota (Prius) that pioneered in the hybrid, but many others as well, but generally with much more modest fuel economy. In addition to hybrids, purchases of fuel-efficient vehicles are available from an even wider number of auto companies.

Information is also available on ways of using and improving mass transit options and employing disincentives to driving in peak periods to reduce pollution and traffic congestion. A short snapshot is available on potential Home Energy Savings.

EPA has also compiled several online tools for conducting in-depth analyses of energy consumption, estimating greenhouse gas emissions or calculating the emissions savings associated with specific emission reduction strategies, comparing the energy and cost savings of emission reduction options, or learning about successful greenhouse gas mitigation projects.

To not only reduce your emissions of greenhouse gases but to offset them entirely by financing carbon reductions, an Oxford UK group, Climate Care, enables you to do so. Climate Institute's Endangered Island Campaign's site also has a carbon calculator.

Another way you may choose to advance climate protection objectives is by investing through an investment fund or service, for example www.lightgreen.com, which incorporates climate concerns in its criteria used to screen potential equity investments.

A prime example of how to actively effect changes is Sarah Ferriter, a former Climate Institute intern who, while a student at the University of Southern Maine, organized a campaign to get the school to use cleaner-burning biodiesel fuel in its buses.The Green Campus portion of this site provides many other examples of innovation in moving campuses to the cutting edge in clean energy and efficient use of resources.

Small Things Make A Difference

Some decisions such as choice of where to buy or build a home, e.g. making it close to likely workplaces of family members or schools of children; how to site the home to take advantage of passive solar energy; how to design it to optimize energy use and achieve natural air conditioning; and selection of a vehicle or vehicles for family use have large emissions implications. Other choices have more modest implications for a family's or individual's greenhouse footprint, but cumulatively add up. Many of these are on a list Time Magazine published, A Global Warming Survival Guide: 51 Things We Can Do to Save the Environment.

Creative companies and individuals have found a number of additional ways to lighten a carbon footprint- sometimes saving money at the same time. A few of these:

Fireplace Burning

The Climate Institute suggests burning bio-wax firelogs instead of cordwood or natural gas as a way of reducing household carbon emissions from use of residential fireplaces.

the leading maker of firelogs in the United States, recently began manufacturing firelogs made with bio-wax instead of petroleum-based wax. Removing the petroleum content from its products not only led to lower carbon emissions, it also made the emissions from burning the firelogs carbon neutral. Independent testing reviewed by the Climate Institute shows the new bio-wax logs create no net increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and that they produce 70 percent less carbon emissions than firewood; they also produce up to 80% less carbon emissions than natural gas fireplaces burned for an equivalent duration.

The new logs are also more climate friendly when compared to natural gas fireplaces since natural gas is a non-renewable fossil fuel. The new Duraflame logs are available at grocery stores, super centers, club stores, hardware stores, and other retail outlets. For more information, visit www.duraflame.com

Drinking Water

Many people rely on bottled water for most of their drinking water and even for such purposes as brushing their teeth. Often this results in significant added economic cost to the consumer and almost invariably in additional carbon emissions due both to the transportation costs in bringing the bottled water to market and to the energy costs involved in making the packaging. Sometimes legitimate health concerns e.g. risk of dysentery or hepatitis, underlie such choices. In many parts of North America and Europe health risks associated with consumption of tap water are minimal, probably less than the risks of breathing the air in those same cities. Often such concerns as taste or the effect of additives such as fluoride can be addressed by modest cost and effective filtration or purification systems in the home — some attached to the refrigerator.

Food

A sizable portion of greenhouse emissions relates to the production of food, its packaging, and its transport to market. Worldwatch Institute has done analyses of advantages of greater reliance on locally grown food and of diminished reliance on factory farming. Some vegetarian groups have pointed out that a vegetarian or quasi-vegetarian diet is likely to be less consumptive of energy than a heavily carnivorous diet. Choices of food are likely to be shaped by numerous factors — health considerations, costs, cultural and religious considerations, ethical concerns, and little understood personal cravings. Greenhouse and energy related concerns are likely to be a secondary or tertiary factor in food choices of most individuals and families. Still, there is merit in engendering greater public awareness of the role of food production, packaging and transport in adding to greenhouse emissions. Even modest individual moves to limit food- related greenhouse emissions will, if emulated broadly, have a large aggregate impact.

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