Turn down the heat
10 ways you can reduce your carbon emissions and help cool the planet
by Andrea Coombes
May 15, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- You really don't have an excuse anymore.
It's never been easier to reduce your contribution to global warming, and you don't have to dig deep into your wallet to get started. Sure, shelling out for solar to power your home or trading in a traditional car for a hybrid will have a big impact, but there are plenty of ways to start small right now. And those reductions add up over time.
"Greenhouse gases come from thousands, even millions, of different types of activities," said Judi Greenwald, director of innovative solutions at Pew Center on Global Climate Change, in Arlington, Va. "It's not going to be one thing you do that's going to do it. It's adding it all up."
You may reap benefits beyond a healthier environment and lower energy bills. Maybe you want that laptop computer because it's portable, but it also uses less energy than your old desktop.
Same goes for flat-panel computer screens versus their clunky predecessors, while the latest dishwashers and other appliances are often quieter and include added features.
And don't focus solely on energy-efficient appliances and compact fluorescent light bulbs. You can reduce carbon emissions when you choose how you take your next vacation or what you eat for dinner. You can even find an energy-efficient mortgage.See the Energy Star Web site for more information.
Houses and cars are prime sources of carbon emissions. Residential energy use nationally produced 21% of total U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions in 2005, while office-property energy use contributed 18%, industrial sites produced another 28% and transportation overall represented 33%, said Evan Mills, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and founder of the Home Energy Saver Web site.Visit the site.
For those who drive, simply driving smarter will reduce climate change.
"The better mileage you get, the more fuel you save, the less carbon dioxide you're emitting," said Urvashi Rangan, a senior scientist and policy analyst with Consumer Reports. "Inflating your tires, getting your oil changed regularly, keeping your car tuned up: Those things can go a long way to improving your fuel mileage."
Slowing down helps, too. "Driving 65 miles per hour versus 75 miles per hour can save you up to 1,500 pounds of carbon dioxide per year, even more if you drive an SUV," Rangan said. That decrease in speed improves your mileage by about 15%.
Buy your way to a healthier planet?
Consumers now can also buy into carbon-offset programs, which let you pay to reduce carbon emissions elsewhere.
Look for a carbon-offset program that funds emission reductions that wouldn't have happened without your money -- an idea called "additionality" -- otherwise, you're funding what would have happened anyway. Visit Web site for more information.
But some say consumers should first reduce their own emissions. While carbon-offset programs are useful, they aren't enough to solve the problem, said Anja Kollmuss, an associate scientist with the Stockholm Environment Institute, affiliated with Tufts University.
"The average American produces so much carbon dioxide that even if every American offset their whole emission, that wouldn't really protect the climate," she said.
An average American produces about 19 to 20 tons of carbon dioxide per year, versus about 10 tons on average for a Western European, and about 3 tons on average per Chinese, she said.
Plus, carbon offsets cost money. Reducing one's own emissions often results in lower energy bills. "From a purely economic perspective, it makes sense for people to look at how they can reduce their emissions before they go out and buy offsets," Kollmuss said.
10 planet-cooling steps
1. Buy locally grown food. "About 10% of all the energy used in America goes to farming food, processing food, transporting food, from the seed to the plate," said Denis Hayes, coordinator of the first Earth Day and now president of the Bullitt Foundation in Seattle. "If you can just buy that same vegetable from somebody that lives on the outskirts of your community, the energy savings are stunning."
Another plan: Eat less red meat. "The production of red meat -- pork and beef -- is incredibly energy-intensive," Kollmuss said. "I'm not advocating people become vegetarian, but just that people are aware that if they eat beef, their impact is much larger than if they eat vegetarian or eat poultry."
If you opt for beef, choose local, grass-fed beef. Most U.S. beef is fed on corn, which requires more energy to produce, said Warren Karlenzig, chief strategy officer at SustainLane.com, which ranks cities on environmental sustainability. "It's not 'Don't eat meat.' It's being choosier about the meat you do eat and how often you eat it."
