CARBON FOOTPRINTS by Kirsten Alexander
by
- Alternatives to driving: When possible, walk or ride your bike to avoid carbon emissions completely. Lift-clubs and public transport drastically reduce CO2 emissions by spreading them out over many riders.
- Stay Classy: Economy class is best, for the same reasons as lift-clubs and public transport. Each flyer's share of a flight's carbon emissions is relatively less because it's spread out over more people.
- Insulate and seal your home: Reduce drafts and air leaks with insulation and weather stripping. This will relieve the need for fossil fuel based solutions to keeping a warmer home.
- Appliances: Make energy efficiency a primary consideration when choosing a new air conditioning unit, dishwasher, or fridge.
- Lights Out: Turn off lights you're not using and when you leave the room. Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent or LED ones.
- Eat locally-produced and organic food: Transporting food requires petroleum-based fuels, and many fertilizers are also fossil fuel-based.
- Cut the beef and dairy: It takes a lot of resources to raise cows, especially where they graze on land that used to be a tropical forest but is now cleared for agricultural use. Deforestation is a top contributor to carbon emissions.
- Water usage: Lower the amount of energy used to pump, treat, and heat water by washing your car less often, using climate-appropriate plants in your garden, installing drip irrigation so that plants receive only what they need, and making water efficient choices when purchasing shower heads, tap fittings, toilets, dishwashers and washing machines.
- Reuse and recycle: Buying used products and reselling, recycling or upcycling items you no longer use will dramatically reduce your carbon footprint.
- Support clean energy sources: Whenever you can, advocate for clean alternatives to fossil fuels, such as wind, solar, geothermal, and appropriately designed hydroelectric and biomass energy projects.
- Buy and consume less. Examine what you really need versus the excess you buy. Simplify and you'll be doing the planet a favour and probably yourself too.
- Counteract your carbon footprint by planting trees.