Last Sunday's New York Times honed in on the dubious practice of Americans buying carbon offsets to brand themselves carbon-neutral. Andy Revkin, the paper's global-warming reporter, quoted me saying, "There isn't a single American household above the poverty line that couldn't cut their CO2 at least 25 percent in six months through a straightforward series of fairly simple and terrifically cost-effective measures."
My claim has hit a nerve. Despite the absence of a link, already a dozen readers have tracked me down on the web and written to ask what measures I have in mind. This article is for them and anyone else who might be interested.
First, a confession. As often happens, assertion preceded analysis. But my claim didn't come from thin air -- I have experience in energy analysis and a feel for the numbers. With a bit of figuring, I made a list of 16 energy-saving (hence carbon-reducing) steps that together should do away with a bit more than one-quarter of a typical U.S. household's carbon emissions.
The top five:
- Shift activities and destinations to cut out 25% of non-commute driving (eliminates 6.3% of average household's CO2),
- Replace incandescent and halogen bulbs with compact fluorescents (eliminates 4.5%).
- E-Z insulation upgrade (4.0%).
- Convert one round-trip commute per week to carpool or transit/bike/walk (2.2%).
- Turn down the thermostat 3ºF during the heating season (1.8%).
These measures alone should reduce a typical household's carbon emissions by almost 19%. The other eleven measures get rid of 8%, for a total of almost 27%. These range from halving television (0.9%) and driving less fuel-intensively (1.4%) to upgrading showerheads (0.8%) and plugging battery chargers and other home electronics into vampire-load busting power strips (0.9%). (See spreadsheet for details.)
Most of these measures are doable tomorrow, and all within six months. To be sure, many of them fall under the rubric of conservation (using less) rather than pure efficiency. But all promise "co-benefits" such as peace and quiet. All require some degree of mindfulness as well. That's okay. If they didn't -- if all these steps were part of the cultural default -- we wouldn't have driven the climate to the point where we must now gear down and change.
Note that I considered only direct household energy use -- gasoline, electricity, and space and water heating. I didn't examine other areas within personal influence such as air travel, food consumption, and purchase of stuff with embodied energy from manufacture, shipping, and retailing. These are all important, but had to be excluded to keep the calculations straightforward and manageable.
Poverty households clearly lack room to cut back, as well as capital to become more efficient. They need targeted weatherization and efficiency programs. For the long haul, the U.S. needs policies that move our entire society to an energy-efficient platform without having to rely solely on individual initiative. These are covered by the efficiency gurus at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and other groups.
Do we need nuclear and coal plants for baseload power?
Comments
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millwright Posted 6:24 am
01 May 2007
As written the cited proposal offer the choice between feeding plants a little more CO2 and feed ourselves a little more mercury. Plants thrive on CO2, animals don't due nearly as well on mercury.
A more responsible lighting source is LED's rapidly emerging as more efficient, safer and less toxic than flourescents.
I'll go along with driving less. For most a car is an utility and driven with all the care, thought and skill one finds exhibited in a public restroom.....>MW
millwright
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Pangolin Posted 7:23 am
01 May 2007
In six months it would be reasonable to have a largely vegetarian diet. Change slowly so you are eating food you like the whole time.
Eat food that is local. Visit your local farmers market before you buy any groceries. If you see something you don't know how to cook the farmers will be glad to tell you what to do with it. This also means eating food that is in season; no strawberries in December unless they're dried or frozen.
Learn to cook from scratch. It is possible to eat without opening a box or wrapper. As a kid we would eat day-old sugared cornbread with milk just like dry cereal. Homemade buckwheat pancakes are better than any mix and can be made in 10 minutes if you mix your dry ingredients ahead of time. Packaged foods cost the planet multiple times the GHG emissions of bulk items.
Quit drinking soda's and bottled waters. Consider brewing your own beer. Every microbrewery I know of was started by some guy making beer in his kitchen. You get better beer cheaper and it saves on bottle manufacturing. Make or buy soda syrups and use a soda charger for sodas.
I could go on but lets hear from other people.
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Karen Street Posted 8:12 am
01 May 2007
Basically, the mercury from the current mix (coal + natural gas) used to light incandescents puts more mercury out in the environment than cfl's do. And mercury is way down the list of coal's sins. Mercury is OK to worry about, but much, much better are particulates, ozone, and coal miners. Oh, and climate change.
I am surprised (and appalled) that disposal plans have been created to encourage people to drive their old bulbs somewhere. Someone missed some important detail or other when they produced that plan.
So drive and fly less, switch to compact fluorescent bulbs, and stop heating and cooling and lighting unused rooms. Try some of the other suggestions. And good luck!
Karen Street
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Gar Lipow Posted 8:21 am
01 May 2007
That latter bit is a good message, but is the fear -- that offsets will lull people into a false sense of security -- really grounded? Is there any empirical evidence for it?
From a folk psychology perspective, it seems equally plausible to me that buying offsets will whet people's appetite for action and lead them to bigger, more ambitious things. But some data would be nice.
The idea that deceiving people is a good way to change their minds long term, to hook them, seem foolish to me. But I'd be curious to hear what you think.
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Pangolin Posted 8:27 am
01 May 2007
Don't let the trolls get to you. Change your bulbs out.
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odograph Posted 8:35 am
01 May 2007
(I decided my fridge and washer had done their 20+ years hard labor ...)
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Delay And Deny Posted 8:45 am
01 May 2007
We could all replace our light bulbs...but wouldn't it make more sense to browbeat the Carbon Elephants into using less?
I bet that if you made
Sheryl Crow
Paul Allen
Leonardo di Caprio
Al Gore
Richard Branson
reduce their "needs" we'd have enough Carbon offsets for all of the regular people in Texas.
You Read It Here First
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Christine Gardner Posted 9:34 am
01 May 2007
Truth is, babies don't really get all that dirty. A damp washcloth is all the cleaning they need and it's better for their delicate skin.
I agree about the benefits of making meals from scratch. My rule of thumb is no high fructose corn syrup. The kids still get Cheerios but it eliminates most prepackaged food.
Plus, so much more delicious.
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spaceshaper Posted 9:43 am
01 May 2007
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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Asher Posted 10:29 am
01 May 2007
Is that an excuse? No! But it's a reality.
Climate Changers... it's a matter of degrees.
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Dawn Pillsbury Posted 3:24 pm
01 May 2007
Particularly, I'm thinking of celery. When you buy a head of celery, how often do you use the whole thing? I have a few celery plants just outside my back door. When I need a stalk, I go pull one off. I never have to throw wilted stalks away (or scrape them off the bottom of the crisper).
The same goes for green onions (how often do you use the whole bunch?). A few herbs growing as near to your kitchen as possible will taste better, save you trips to the store and always be fresh when you need them.
Gardening is especially important if you have kids, as kids eat more fruits and vegetables if they're homegrown.
And if you have more room, homegrown salad greens are far better than anything you can buy in a store.
It's exciting to grow tomatoes and corn, but you can grow herbs and salad year-round (well, at least in California). And it gives you someplace to use your compost (you are composting your food scraps, right?). And it's easy to get overwhelmed by too-ambitious gardening projects. If you keep a few plants right outside your door where you'll see and use them every day, it will add a little verdure to your routine without a lot of effort.
Grow what you eat. Eat what you grow.
http://garden2table.blogspot.com/
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Ron Steenblik Posted 10:10 pm
01 May 2007
On a PPP (purchasing power parity) basis, 84% of the world's wealth is owned by the top 20% of households, not 3%. The figures are documented here.
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caniscandida Posted 10:40 pm
01 May 2007
The civilization of the republic has perhaps moved along since then ...
And let us not get into changing one's underwear.
As for babies, how much water could bathing a baby really demand? Not very much, I think?
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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amazingdrx Posted 11:08 pm
01 May 2007
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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aspector Posted 3:10 am
02 May 2007
We here at the National Association for State Community Services Programs are pleased to report that a "targeted weatherization and efficiency" program does exist for those otherwise unable to afford such measures.
I'm talking about the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) which saves an average family $358 in reduced first year energy costs and conserves an average of 30.5 million MBtu of energy.
Weatherization mesaures also reduce the national energy demand by the equivalent of 18 million barrels of oil a year.
Alas, this crucial program has been depriortized by the Administration and we are facing devistating cuts-- despite the fact that we have been described by the Department of Energy as "this country's longest running, and perhaps most successful energy efficiency program". Go figure.
For more information on this awesome home energy conservation program and those who support it, visit our WAP Blog
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Christine Gardner Posted 4:28 am
02 May 2007
So, maybe just don't reproduce and save yourself the headache of the internal debate about how often is too often to bathe your children.
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SustainableGreen Posted 6:42 am
02 May 2007
I would like to consolidate 3 spread-out comments which I think deserve repeating to improve on the original suggestions.
Buy food locally produced--we pay huge costs to transport cold water in the form of fruits and vegetables halfway around the world. Local is also fresher, and supports local economies. The most immediate, as suggested above, is your own yard, and has benefits well beyond mere local produce. As an example I read somewhere gardens typically take less water than lawns of the same size. Hmmm.
This may be slightly beyond the effort scale implied here but not the time frame stated--installation of a domestic solar water heating system is one of the most cost-effective ways of reducing CO2 output. Roughly 1 in 7 water heaters are burning energy at any given time, whether someone is using the hot water or not. My water heater is also "on"--but it is solar.
Though perhaps said in jest, in fact population is one of the less mentioned aspects of sustainability and environmental impacts. We dwell almost exclusively on the unit of consumption angle, while ignoring the unit of consumer.
Consumer X Consumption = Impacts
A good list, which I hope more will heed and commit to, and provide leadership others will follow.
David
Sustainability For Life
Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!
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Charles Komanoff Posted 10:55 am
02 May 2007
Was your invitation to comment re offsets meant for me?
If so, I'll simply say that carbon offsets end up serving as a "privatized" (if you will) response to the climate crisis, when what we need is a more collectively guided response in which all can participate.
Now, I'm aware that my sixteen measures are also a private response. But they arise from, and are in harmony with, a social intent to reduce carbon, rather than paying someone else to reduce. That's a crucial distinction.
Charles
http://www.komanoff.net
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Gar Lipow Posted 2:32 pm
02 May 2007
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JMG Posted 2:46 pm
02 May 2007
http://www.salon.com/comics/boll/2007/05/03/boll/index1.h ...
"An optimist is someone who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right."
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A Siegel Posted 4:09 am
03 May 2007
Eating lower on the food chain -- even if just several meals a week -- big time change
Eat locally -- as much as possible
And, well, ...
Reduce packaging waste -- buy bulk, prefer unpackaged over packaged (anyone else annoyed by single "organic" apples wrapped in plastic), bring your own bags rather than take plastic
Always buy up efficiency: whenever replacing any product, always seek to get more than "minimum" in terms of energy efficiency upgrades
MAINTAIN THE CAR -- inflate tires/etc to maximize energy efficiency
Etc ...
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dlong01 Posted 5:40 am
03 May 2007
Thanks
Dave
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JMG Posted 4:55 am
04 May 2007
One simple thing to do is notice the "wall warts" in your house--the ugly little transformers that plug into the outlet so that you can then plug a tiny stepped down current into your device (laptops, etc.) Those things are big energy wasters. They should always be plugged into a power strip that you turn off when the device itself is not in use.
"An optimist is someone who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist is someone who is afraid that the optimist is right."
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Charles Komanoff Posted 5:10 am
04 May 2007
Today's (4-May) Detroit Free-Press picked up on our thread in a nice interview piece, "Reduce carbon usage by degrees," that also mentions some of the Gristmill comments. It's here:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070504/ ...
The piece is right about my (measly) 3-mile round-trip bike commute. I shoulda said I log around 3,000 bike miles a year, but whatever.
Only downer is the negativity in some of the Detroit paper comments, e.g., "I'll give up my XYZ when they pry my cold dead fingers ..." and "For every person who cuts their CO2 25%, I'll increase mine by 25%." Carbon taxes, everyone?
Charles
http://www.komanoff.net
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EplusE Posted 1:07 am
10 May 2007
Here's one more:
How about reducing voluntary travel? What is the cost of flying to Florida, Mexico and other beach destinations for the annual family vacation? Discovering your own backyard could help save the planet.
Emily Costello
http://www.greencasestudy.com
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hibiscus Posted 4:50 pm
10 May 2007
here are some quick household vehicle-miles-traveled stats from the survey.
1969 2001
Total: 12,423 21,187
To/From Work: 4,183 5,724
Shopping: 929 3,062
Other Chores: 1,270 3,956
Social/R&R: 4,094 5,186
according to their other info, to/from work miles increase was a combination of more workers in the house driving longer in fewer shared trips. social/recreational trip miles increased because ride sharing decreased (from like 2.5 to 2.0 people per trip). so the relationship is almost 1:1.
obviously these are huge averages and some people don't drive their own cars on vacation and some drivers don't drive to work.
so charles you want 3,000 miles out of those average 12,000. i threw out "transit/carpool where available" in your suggestions because on average, people already carpool extensively in their off-clock activities. the fun driving averages 2.0 per car, like i said, and the chores are almost that high.
you probably need to make clearer some scenarios for carpools-of-carpools. my suspicion is that these numbers are high because there are kids in the car. carpooling multiple families to do daily or weekly errands, more than people already do it, is a bigger hassle than anything else on your list and needs special handling if that's what you're suggesting.
but the thing that made me cut the estimate in this category in half, bringing the whole package down to about 20% tops in real world results (because you assume too many 100% changes of behavior in a world of cheap energy) — those car miles didn't triple only because people started driving more casually when doing errands. time is not free; people are already compressing trips. what they're not doing is using nearby goods and services vendors.
so, when i see a tripling of something like that, because we already know that services have been dispersed across the transportation grid on purpose, to reduce distribution and store front operating costs, the question is how much of this new mileage is a result of bad habit ("i'll just drive over and get that thing i forgot") and how much is being forced on them by sprawl and the collapse of the local business agglomerations that used to let people do multiple errands in one short trip.
i've talked to a lot of people in the last six months about this and very widely, the suburban folks say their local options are miserable; the box stores have taken over and that often means getting on an interstate to get groceries.
in the same way, people go to churches that are farther away; kids' activities are more spread out; doctors' offices are more distant, especially if your health plan is picky; "i like this one much better"; and so on and so on.
my point being, the system is rigged. i'd like to think that if we reach critical mass with people who want to drive fewer miles and find that they literally can't cut their driving because of how the services are arranged, that will get people working on rebuilding local services, creating better housing density to support them, etc.
but that does seem to be the big problem here and i don't think you can assume there are that many miles to cut even in a majority of cases, without either a drop in quality of services received. for a lot of people their local planners have to fix what's broke.
ALSO: the friend who forwarded your article to me suggested adding some pricing information for the different components. i've run across this a lot, and when talking to people, the variations of pricing on getting better windows installed, for instance, is unbelievably frustrating. people are resistant to spending a blank check on this stuff; they want to be able to measure first, cut later.
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hibiscus Posted 1:18 pm
23 May 2007
distance to services is a widespread problem in the USA and canada. it's a known problem. either WE face things like that, that are our unique engineering obstacles, or we kill the world.
ordinary people have most of their money tied up in real estate. think what that means about how easy it will be to reduce the energy required to feed and stock everybody.
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spaceshaper Posted 12:09 am
24 May 2007
Individual efforts to curb personal impacts are without doubt always good, but until we also address these larger scale issues, as communities, they will not cumulatively even begin to have sufficient effect. I'm fortunate to work in a small well-serviced downtown where almost all of my daily needs are met within only a three minute walk from my office - groceries, restaurants, hardware, garden supplies, even my dentist. Most of the better employment options in my metro area though are located in suburban office parks where you are compelled to drive even just to get lunch. And having got in your car, five miles is as easy as one - it's more about easy parking than about distance.
By all means cut your own footprint as much as you can manage - but please also consider that lobbying your local government for sane development policy may be the single most effective thing that you can do, as an individual, to change our disastrous habits of resource abuse and mindless environmental degradation. Hey - why not run for office? Development policy is something that's completely off the radar of national politics - it MUST happen at a local level, and it's an arena where a few dedicated individuals can make a real difference. That new high school - should it really have that many student (and staff) parking spaces? How about making it safe and easy to walk and bike to instead? Do your town ordinances impose suburban parking standards on new downtown development? Are your downtown streets multi-lane drag strips? Is it safer to drive across the street from your apartment to the shopping center than to walk over for a carton of milk?
There's work to be done.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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SustainableGreen Posted 2:10 am
24 May 2007
Hey, Hibiscus:
With all due respect, I in turn wish educated people like you would observe the rules of capitalization. E.E. Cummings could get away it as a feature of style, and Don Marquis could get away with it as an endearing fictional mechanism. None of the rest of us have that luxury, and for the rest of us it looks pretentious or lazy. When we want to get our point across, distractions make this goal less likely. I pass over such writing simply because it is more difficult to read, which brings up a very practical reason for the conventions of sentence structure. You command more respect for your writing when it shows a certain level of structure and formality. Please take this advice seriously, to be taken seriously.
Much of the problems of urban sprawl are a function of philosophy and mentality in the West. When Europeans came here the vastness and the need to travel easily, plus the spirit of individuality probably is what leads to such open, unplanned, urban structure. Property rights and the influence of profit-driven developers fills out the picture.
Simply getting people to drive less without alternatives is pretty fruitless, as your numbers suggest. Since travel is so important in our culture and economy, mass transit of people in the form of light rail is needed and has been shown to be among the best solutions. Power for the light rail system needs to be a form of sustainable electricity, either by PV or wind powering trains directly, charging batteries, or hydrogen fuel cells.
The rest of people transit needs to be modified to reduce CO2 production by use of battery or hydrogen fuel cell cars charged by distributed PV and wind. All other forms of transit are ultimately unsustainable.
We won't be unmaking our cites and contracting them to a smaller footprint in any short time span. We are much better off extending rail systems and greatly curtailing the construction of more and more super 12-lane highways. None of this is a quick fix since we painted ourselves into a corner a very long way away from the door.
David
Sustainability For Life
Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!
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spaceshaper Posted 3:26 am
24 May 2007
Light rail has been shown to be a useful option in certain urban areas with sufficient density of development. The kind of place where most Americans do not live and work.
Power for the light rail system needs to be a form of sustainable electricity, either by PV or wind powering trains directly, charging batteries, or hydrogen fuel cells.
Trains with sails! Cool!
"The rest of people transit needs to be modified to reduce CO2 production by use of battery or hydrogen fuel cell cars charged by distributed PV and wind. All other forms of transit are ultimately unsustainable."
Walking and cycling are unsustainable?
"We won't be unmaking our cites and contracting them to a smaller footprint in any short time span."
But there are daily opportunities for influencing critical decisions at the local government level, decisions which have cumulative and scalable effect to slow or stop the ongoing damage.
"We are much better off extending rail systems and greatly curtailing the construction of more and more super 12-lane highways."
Agreed about the highways. But light rail systems without walkable/bikable nodes to connect to are just another boondoggle.
"None of this is a quick fix since we painted ourselves into a corner a very long way away from the door."
Yep. Better roll up our sleeves and get busy.
and by the way, let's not get too snippy about grammar and punctuation. we're not writing for newsweek here. correct spelling is important for clear and accurate communication (there's an important difference between insulation and insolation for example which at least one commenter here seems to have failed to pick up on) but if i can read a comment and feel confident i get the gist, i'm good to go.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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