Dear Umbra,
This year my family is not in the position to make any major CO2-reducing changes. We will not be purchasing a new car, a smaller house, or more efficient appliances. And honestly, with two small children living in a suburb, public transportation is not a realistic option. Still, we'd like to reduce our carbon footprint and help the environment. Would you be able to point out other meaningful, smaller changes we could make? Thanks for your guidance.
Tara H.
Indianapolis, Ind.
Dearest Tara,
Don't abandon hope for significant greenhouse-gas reductions. If your life is anything approaching the typical American's, there are at least two major CO2-reducing changes still within your grasp. You can't drive less, buy a better car, or make any major home investments, but you can probably eat less meat and avoid the airport. Conventional meats and air travel are two personal climate impact behemoths.
Take a bite out of clime.
Four people flying round trip from Indianapolis to Cancún would emit 9,856 pounds of CO2 (by comparison, a typical family car emits about 12,000 pounds of CO2 in a year. The Environmental Defense Fund estimates that if all Americans switched from their current diets to going meat-free one day a week, it would be equivalent to removing 8 million American cars from the roads. Another way to look at the meat delete option is through the calculations offered by the Pacific Institute, which estimates that a skimpy 40-gram pile of hamburger (about 1.5 ounces worth) causes 790 to 1,500 grams of CO2 emissions. If you calculate how many grams of burgers your family usually eats and add it all up, you can get an idea of your yearly beef-induced emissions; you can also estimate your travel emissions by using any number of online calculators.
May I presume, however, that budget is a limiting factor for you? Eating lower on the food chain -- and, of course, eschewing the hella-expensive cost of an airline ticket -- are quite kind to the pocketbook, unlike the upfront costs of the new auto and home improvements you mention above. In fact, if you don't currently fly due to economics, pat yourself on the back -- your footprint is already lower than many Americans'. A big sticking point on following this prescription, though, is that flying and meat-eating (among other high-carbon callings) are often undertaken for pleasure. To ease any resistance you may have to foregoing things you enjoy, remember: In situations where habit change is hard, we start with Less, not None.
I want to once again mention Mark Bittman's New York Times article about eating less meat (I'm going through a Mark Bittman phase). Unlike yours truly, Bittman can avoid the Why and go directly to the How, and (also unlike yours truly) he is a cooking expert. His suggestions include reducing portion size (the USDA, for one, recommends only about five or six ounces of meat each day); he also advises using other protein sources, eating less protein overall, ordering differently at restaurants, and serving less-meaty dishes that are so delicious they're a pleasure unto themselves.
As to flying -- if indeed you or yours partake in such an activity -- there is a straightforward way to reduce, and a slightly complicated way too (or probably several, but for now I'm just mentioning one). If your family typically flies for one vacation and two visits to see the extended family, cut out one of these trips or substitute a less carbonaceous (bus! train! llama!) travel method. I don't have much experience with business travel, but I do know that video conferencing and trip consolidation are also useful when it comes to reducing business miles flown. If you cannot trim the number of annual plane trips, whether for business or for family, see if you can curtail the emissions on your flights through clever flight choices. Direct flights are better than indirect flights, because take-off and landing burn the most fuel. A strong aviation emissions calculator, such as Atmosfair, will help you compare various routes and emissions costs as you shop for tickets.
As you see, your family need not feel environmentally helpless or stumped. These two tweaks alone could make a great difference -- unless you are already land-bound vegetarians. In which case, write back and we'll talk about different changes.
Affably,
Umbra
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Comments
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marylounoble Posted 7:54 am
24 Sep 2008
I must admit that I do make several trips to the Bay area and southern California each year to visit children and grandchildren which I am not willing to forego. Unfortunately, Southwest Airlines has eliminated through flights to Ontario,CA so I must change planes in Oakland or Sacramento.
The environmental contribution that I CAN claim is consuming no meat or fish products. I have also hired Your Backyard Farmers here in Portland, Oregon to cultivate and harvest the produce of an organic garden. It's a bit spendy, so doing one's own would be far more economical. As I have many more vegetables than I can consume, I will most likely invite neighbors to join in my efforts next year.
Other contributions I make are recyling and composting virtually all household waste, using fluorescent light bulbs, and driving a Prius. I know you can't afford a new car, however!!
Good luck with your endeavors,
Marylou Noble
Portland, OR
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bailsout Posted 11:39 am
24 Sep 2008
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zegg Posted 12:53 am
25 Sep 2008
stopped using the tumble-dryer - it just adds 15 mins to my laundry time to hang everything to dry on racks in the bathroom (I'm a working mom of 2, so I do laundry at night, hence can't hang outside). Only doing full loads of laundry and on a cold wash also helps.
replaced bottled fizzy water with a home-soda maker - just add tapwater and press to carbonate.
use the a/c as little as possible (keeping curtains closed during the day helps, as do screens in the skylights)
did an electrical audit, and switched off those things that drain power when on standby (the baby monitor was the biggest surprise!)
stopped visiting the mall to shop at lunchtime (a 5 mile roundtrip)
Now if only I could persuade the rest of my family that we don't need to eat meat every day! And I do need to do something about improving the insulation in my house before the winter hits.
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mrsmlgn Posted 2:09 am
25 Sep 2008
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schultedm Posted 8:14 am
25 Sep 2008
Ride your bike and walk whenever you can.
Also, don't buy products that have a long and deep carbon trail to them. Think about every little purchase you make. They add up after awhile. For starters, try not to buy products made from plastic and reuse as much as possible before recycling.
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tmakreider Posted 12:58 pm
25 Sep 2008
NOBODY wants government regulation on the number of kids we can have so if everyone would step up and be more responsible it won't have to come to that!
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John former Marine Posted 9:56 pm
25 Sep 2008
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DannyGirl Posted 4:06 am
26 Sep 2008
Please also remember that around the world, the reason people have lots of children is not only to serve religious dogma, or because they were bored and having sex is cheap entertainment, but BECAUSE having a stable of children ensures security for the parents in old age because children don't always live to adulthood. Even in our culture old age security is NOT a given. If you want to address the "too many babies" issue, you also have to address the issue of security in old age and issue of resentful youngsters to pay the taxes to make it happen.
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DannyGirl Posted 4:11 am
26 Sep 2008
Spoiler: too much food = increased fertility = more people. Answer: take away the food, problem solved.
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tmakreider Posted 12:42 pm
26 Sep 2008
I don't know...my beliefs tend to be black and white and exchanges like this open my mind. Thank you!
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bkeypurr Posted 12:50 am
30 Sep 2008
To me, the really selfish people are the ones who are well educated, making good money, could afford to raise 2 or more children and choose not to have any. Don't leave the baby making to the poor, uneducated and those who don't care about the environment then blame them for the problems that they and their children are causing.
As the saying goes, "The children are our future." Once you are gone from this world, you will no longer be able to add or subtract to your carbon foot print. If you have children who are taught how to live in a sustainable way, your contribution to the environment could go on for generations after you are gone. In that case, if you had 4 children instead of just 2, your impact would be two times greater. So, no, the argument that having more than 2 children is irresponsible and adding to the problem is just plain wrong.
Educating our children and our parents who to live more in harmony with the environment is the key. And as a person who choses not to have children, this could be your lasting contribution to make. Be a good example and help educate children and parents instead of judging and condemning them.
Parents of large families by default have to be more efficient and recycle by necessity (hand-me down clothes, toys, cars, etc). These families per person carbon foot prints can be much smaller than a single person or married couple living in a home. I am not advocating that we should all go out and start large families, I am just pointing out that having a large family does not necessarily make the parents selfish and a larger burden on the planet.
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achoirguy Posted 1:27 am
02 Oct 2008
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achoirguy Posted 1:33 am
02 Oct 2008
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scd Posted 1:44 am
02 Oct 2008
What's more, our population growth rates are pretty close to zero (and in some european nations, are less than zero).
I plan on only having 2 children, myself, but if we don't change the ways in which we produce and consume energy, we are done for. Slowing population growth alone isn't going to do it, even if we froze the population at today's level, we're screwed, if that's all we do, and here's why:
The real scary thing about pop. growth in developing countries is that, eventually, these countries will move towards more 'western,' energy-intensive lifestyles. As mentioned above, this second move increases average energy consumption by 12 time. Doubling the world population (and energy demand) will be tough to accomodate, but if this population growth is followed by a 12X increase in per-capita demand, we're finished. This is why China is building, on average, one coal plant a week now, after pop. growth has slowed, and not during their period of high population growth.
So the real 'elephant in the room' isn't population growth. The developed countries need to figure out ways to maintain their 'comfortable' lifestyle on less energy, so that when developing countries start looking to increase their standard of living, cheap and efficient means of energy conversion are the standard-bearers. The sooner we can do this, the better.
/rant
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maladapted Posted 4:10 am
02 Oct 2008
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sycamore Posted 1:15 am
03 Oct 2008
So all you social engineers out there I suggest that you start at the top and find a way to solve the real problem, which is an aging population and change the population ratios, our pyramid is up side down and too few young people will be pulled down by the too many old people. Get real no other species has this problem.
Suggestion: Let's fight all our wars with the old people, since they are the ones that voted these idiots in to office. This will "kill "two birds with one stone. Children are the future.
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PolluteLessDotCom Posted 5:01 am
03 Oct 2008
I learned a long time ago that at times of overpopulation some species turn infertile. The stress of having not enough to live results in biological changes and the animals have much fewer off spring. When the population shrinks to sustainable levels the stress to survive disappears and fertility returns. This leads me to believe that humans have this problem because we either do not feel enough stress yet, have lost (or never had) this natural response to overpopulation, or refuse to accept that there are times for having children, and times for not having children.
I continue to feel that reason is either not our strong suit or that it is going to be the cause of our species' downfall.
Have fewer children than there are parents, eat no meat, live small and simple, and maybe not that long. And educate the few existing children to live by the eco-wise standards us adults know a lot about, talk a lot about, but mostly are not willing to live by. And all too often, those adults are parents refusing to live more reasonably in order to "help" their children.
Karsten
http://www.polluteless.com
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PolluteLessDotCom Posted 5:18 am
03 Oct 2008
Karsten
http://www.polluteless.com
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