Can you please tell me the most effective way that a person can reduce their carbon footprint?
I've been watching science shows and this E36 M3 seems a bit scary at the rate things are changing.
I am not debating whether or not humans are the cause of the issue. However, I think we could help the situation.
Thanks.
Rob R.
Don't eat meat. Don't use energy (unless you have a full solar system), don't buy anything shipped, don't buy anything manufactured.... get a billion of your friends to do the same, and you might see a difference in 10-20 years, maybe.
Being scared can be good, but it can also be destructive if there is realistically little you can do.
Bill Gates has a decent article on it:
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/My-plan-for-fighting-climate-change
I am curious if solar heating (retention really) is such an issue, why not just put a very large solar shade at the Solar (L1) Le Grange point? It would be expensive, but WAY cheaper than some of the other options.
Stop watching television. Not only will that reduce your carbon footprint, because you'll be using less electricity, but you'll also cease being inundated by the "OMG WE ALL GONNA DIE" sensationalism that sells commercial time.
In other news...
It basically all boils down to using less fossil energy (to reduce fossil CO2 emissions), eating less meat and especially beef (to reduce methane emissions (mainly from the livestock 
) and deforestation), and eventually contributing to sucking CO2 out of the biosphere and putting it back in the ground.
Easy steps for the average person:
- Get cleaner power to your house
- Run your car off the cleaner power to that house (EV)
- Carbon offset other major fossil fuel consuming activities like airplane flights. Soon all flights will include the cost of carbon offsets which will increase their prices about 5%.
Also the worst thing you can emit in this situation isn't CO2 or methane or even some exotic flourocarbon super-greenhouse-gas, it's defeatism.
Edit: Or maybe it's actually disinformation...is that getting political?
It really comes down to creating less waste. This can come from changing habits, or improving efficiencies in many different areas of our lives.
Use less fuel> Drive less. Combine trips, take the most efficient route, etc. Drive more efficient vehicles. Carpool or take public transit.
Reduce energy consumption> Unplug chargers and devices when not in use. Convert to LEDs and more efficient lighting/appliances. Insulate and air seal your home. Turn the water heater down. Conserve water.
Watch what you eat> eat things that aren't made in a factory. Eat things that aren't shipped across the world, or country. Eat less meat (livestock is responsible for a large percentage of greenhouse gases). Grow a garden.
Reduce consumption> Don't buy trendy junk that will be broken, used up, or thrown away quickly. Buy things that last. Things that can be repaired, and use them until they cannot be used any longer. Recycle what you can and reduce any waste possible.
Offset> Plant trees and vegetation. Use renewable energy sources where feasible. Compost.
Wiki says:
Most of the carbon footprint emissions for the average U.S. household come from "indirect" sources, e.g. fuel burned to produce goods far away from the final consumer. These are distinguished from emissions which come from burning fuel directly in one's car or stove, commonly referred to as "direct" sources of the consumer's carbon footprint.
Based on that, most of your carbon footprint is beyond your control.
You could probably have a greater impact working at lobbying efforts than actually cutting your own usage.
Im not saying don’t try. But I’m saying your overall effectiveness would probably be better if you made efforts to influence other people, and the things that are out of your control.
^Not entirely, you can choose which goods you buy and thus the demand from those indirect sources. For example I choose where to host my computing power in such a way to minimize the indirect use of fossil energy.
In reply to SVreX :
I still think it's worthwhile to do what you can as an individual to reduce your own footprint. Primarily because most of the ways to do that will improve your life in other ways as well. For example, using less fuel, growing a garden, reducing energy usage around your home or using things for their entire useable lives before disposing will save you money. Eating foods that have been grown/raised locally, growing a garden, and avoiding overly processed crap can improve your health vs eating some slop that gets squirted out of a factory far, far away with a shelf life of 8 months. Being healthier can also save you money by reducing medical costs (which reduces trips/fuel used going to the Dr, and eliminates more medical waste). Each of these things will benefit the individual in tangible ways, and reduces carbon footprint for everybody.
short answer:
Travel less, use less power, buy less crap/replace with goods that are made efficiently
shorter answer:
Spend less money
ProDarwin said:shorter answer:
Spend less money
Not at all, perhaps unfortunately, reducing your carbon footprint can involve spending more money, like on carbon offsets and EVs and, for now, renewable power.
SVreX said:Wiki says:
Most of the carbon footprint emissions for the average U.S. household come from "indirect" sources, e.g. fuel burned to produce goods far away from the final consumer. These are distinguished from emissions which come from burning fuel directly in one's car or stove, commonly referred to as "direct" sources of the consumer's carbon footprint.
Based on that, most of your carbon footprint is beyond your control.
You could probably have a greater impact working at lobbying efforts than actually cutting your own usage.
Im not saying don’t try. But I’m saying your overall effectiveness would probably be better if you made efforts to influence other people, and the things that are out of your control.
Don't buy goods that take a lot of energy to make. Don't buy goods that come from a long distance. Done. The article is very correct- the larges user of power is industry- factories >> homes, and good transportation >> personal.
My point was already posted by others- eat local. Food is the most constant thing we get, so if you only buy local, well... (another benefit of that is we get to rediscover what food is supposed to taste like, and enjoy the better seasonal things we can consume).
GameboyRMH said:ProDarwin said:shorter answer:
Spend less money
Not at all, perhaps unfortunately, reducing your carbon footprint can involve spending more money, like on carbon offsets and EVs and, for now, renewable power.
Broad statement. Its not always 100% true, but in most cases if you cut someones income a bunch you would reduce their carbon footprint.
At the extreme low end you are on a bicycle, don't have electricity, and eat stuff from your veggie garden or that you've killed that day. And you have no money to buy garbage that takes a lot of carbon to create. That's about as low as you can get.
ProDarwin said:GameboyRMH said:ProDarwin said:shorter answer:
Spend less money
Not at all, perhaps unfortunately, reducing your carbon footprint can involve spending more money, like on carbon offsets and EVs and, for now, renewable power.
Broad statement. Its not always 100% true, but in most cases if you cut someones income a bunch you would reduce their carbon footprint.
At the extreme low end you are on a bicycle, don't have electricity, and eat stuff from your veggie garden or that you've killed that day. And you have no money to buy garbage that takes a lot of carbon to create. That's about as low as you can get.
It's also a good argument that keeping a used car that gets decent mileage and decent emissions is better than buying a new EV. Part of the cost of building new stuff.
If one has the option of getting cast off parts for an EV or renewable power, then you can keep your foot print down by the re-use part of "Reuse, reduce, recycle" all of which will reduce carbon footprint.
Don't have kids.
ShawnG said:Don't have kids.
Or at least don't have more than 2
The unsustainability of the agricultural practices that have allowed the earth to sustain 7.6 billion people (at the cost of half of the non-human life including most of the insects in just a few decades) is a whole different scary problem...
We could go nuclear power. That is 100% carbon free.
If the US applied modern Risk Management and Hazardous Operation controls to nuclear power generation we could do it with very little chance of radiation escape.
We could charge our battery operated ground transport or power trains directly off the grid.
ShawnG said:Don't have kids.
QFT.
Everything else is just rearranging the deck chairs while the band plays. Until Thanos knocks the population down by 50% NOTHING we do will make a difference so don't sweat it.
Cancel the challenge. Duh. 
My family started tracking our carbon footprint this year-we'll buy carbon offsets at the end of the year. If our house is a "normal" US household we'll end up having to purchase about 20 metric tons worth of offsets. The price for offsetting a metric ton is between $5 and $15...so I guess we'll be spending max about $300 on offsets. This seems like a small amount to me, so I could be wrong.
Here is a good breakdown of where carbon use comes from:
http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/carbon-footprint-factsheet
Lots of good stuff in this thread already. You can control lots of this yourself (eat less meat, buy some solar panels, drive a Prius, turn the thermostat down), and you can work on political/social solutions as well. This would be things like voting for candidates who believe in man-made climate change, pressuring your electric company to go renewable, or just buying local foods from your grocery.
If humans created the problem, then we can solve it. It's just a matter of getting enough of us on board.
KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:ShawnG said:Don't have kids.
QFT.
Everything else is just rearranging the deck chairs while the band plays. Until Thanos knocks the population down by 50% NOTHING we do will make a difference so don't sweat it.
Population size only affects the speed at which global warming is capable of biting us in the ass, not whether it does. Earth's population was 50% of what it is now around 1970 and much of the damage was already done at that point - a planet with 50% of the population could ruin itself without too much trouble.
I don't mean to be Captain Bummer. I am just trying to be realistic based on human behavior and the realities/practicalities of the world. I am not saying you should not do anything, just not to overdo it or worry yourself sick about it.
It's kind of like "the starving kids in Africa" situation. You can give money to the charities, but do that realizing it's mostly to make you feel good, it's doing very little for the kids (highly inefficient way to help), and even less for the overall problem (them not having a pile of food to eat is not the root issue).
Heck, the US and the EU could go to ZERO emissions in, lets say 20 years, which would be wildly expensive and disruptive, require a semi-facist (economically) level of government control (and realistically / practically has a zero chance of happening) and that would still only represent about 25% of the world emissions. Not nearly enough by most estimates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
You can make you house smell better by eating foods that don't make you fart, but when you have 4 roommates who are hooked on beans, it's really not going to smell much better.
I am hopeful we are best off pushing for advanced technology solutions for all ends of the issue. And yes, nuke power is an obvious answer to some of it (realistically though....).
Ride a bicycle, plant a garden (as Pro Darwin already said-Hey, appropriate screen name!)
I also agree with the negative population growth bit.
Pretty hard to feel good about our chances.
Best to have a laugh.
alfadriver said:My point was already posted by others- eat local. Food is the most constant thing we get, so if you only buy local, well... (another benefit of that is we get to rediscover what food is supposed to taste like, and enjoy the better seasonal things we can consume).
Locally grown food is well and good if it's something that grows well locally. There are some cases where trying to grow something locally can cost more in energy than growing it in a place with appropriate temperature and rainfall. Some rather silly examples would be if you found locally grown bananas in Minnesota, or cranberries in Arizona, but I've heard of real life examples that were inappropriate enough that bringing it in from a distant location where it actually wanted to grow cost less energy than growing it locally. So this rule needs to add the caveat that if it's not easily grown locally, it's not going to help much.
Also keep in mind that they've been saying that we have 10 years to stop global warming for the past 30 years, which puts some of the more hysterical claims in perspective. The more mainstream claims put out by actual science have been in the realm of a 2 degree temperature rise, a few inches of ocean rise, and some other general unpleasantness - it's generally politicians and Hollywood who have gone for the idea that the future would be Waterworld, Mad Max, or the Day After Tomorrow. Less pollution, less waste, and less using non-renewable resources are good, but worrying about things you have no control over isn't going to help.
Maybe we should add, "Don't give in to Nihlism" to the list of things you can do. Humans are a remarkably adaptable species, and this is a problem to be solved, like any other.
In reply to aircooled :
Funny you should mention starving kids. Massive progress has been made in lowering the number of people living in poverty world wide. In 1980 about 40% of the global population was living on the equivalent of $1.90 or less, that number is now around 10%. In sub-saharan Africa that number was close to 60% in 1993, and is now down around 40%.
https://data.worldbank.org/topic/poverty?end=2014&start=1960
After pulling out of the Paris Climate accord it's important to realize that WE are now the stinky roommates...the rest of the world has committed to cleaning up it's act...and is making progress in doing so.
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