Reducing our Carbon Footprint

With the Earth rapidly heading towards 1.5C due to human CO2 emissions and anthropogenic Climate Change, we all need to reduce our carbon footprint. CrtrGrl and I have found some easy and not so expensive ways of doing it. The big changes cost a little bit of extra money, but we think it’s worth it. For us, it’s a work in progress, so we know we still have a carbon footprint and need to continue making changes. We’ve eased into it over time, so we’re not judging anyone for taking baby steps. Adopting one or more of these changes will make a big difference over time.

Reducing our carbon footprint helps slow the pace of global warming and reduces the pollution that comes with burning fossil fuels. It also shows our friends, neighbors and fellow humans that we take Climate Change seriously. In addition to the changes below, we also believe it’s critical to vote, sign petitions, and speak out about the need for the whole world to reduce CO2 emissions.

Once we switched our home electricity to wind energy, we reduced our natural gas usage by purchasing an electric space heater. Natural gas has as large a carbon footprint as coal due to the massive amount of leakage during capture.

We no longer use the natural gas heater built into the place. The downside is that this costs more on our electricity bill than it would for gas, since electric heaters cost more than gas. CrtrGrl and I decided this was worth it to us and having a smaller place helps reduce the cost.

For drying our clothes, we have a gas dryer. If we were purchasing a new dryer today, we would definitely go with an electric one in order to eliminate the carbon footprint of drying our clothes. We hang dry about half of our clothes and that helps reduce wear and tear on the clothes, shrinkage and reduces our carbon foot print by a little.

Other sources of our carbon footprint that we haven’t eliminated include our small gas stove/oven and our gas water heater. For the water heater, we try to wash clothes in cold water more often, though we’re not always able to. I’m also encouraging CrtrGrl to do the Wim Hof method – take cold showers – even though I don’t.  🙂 The gas stove came with the rental, so we don’t have an option to switch to electric. However, probably 75% of our vegan meals are raw/cold, so we don’t use the stove to prepare them.

For a number of reasons, we went vegan. Our primary reason was ethical – to reduce the amount of suffering we cause towards animals. It also had a major impact on our carbon footprint. If you add up the amount of carbon sucking forest land lost to livestock, animal waste, factory and transportation emissions, going vegan/vegetarian reduces our carbon footprint for food by about half.

If you’re not ready to go vegan, just reducing the amount of meat you eat will make a difference. Try eating vegetarian/vegan one to two days a week, at first. Small changes make a difference over time and easing into eating less meat is much easier than going cold turkey. Pun intended.

We also shop at our local farmers market for our fruits and vegetables. We try to buy seasonal produce when it’s available, rather than buying products shipped in from other countries. Buying local supports our community farmers and significantly reduces the transportation emissions for our food.

I’ve been struggling with how to change my personal, single largest contribution to Climate Change. CrtrGrl and I have cut back on other areas, such as going vegan, switching our power over to renewables, but I’ve been stuck with a much bigger contribution. The best alternatives to driving would be public transportation, riding a bike or not traveling. An electric vehicle would be the next best option, especially if your home power comes from green energy.

For my day job, my weekly commute is about 520 miles. Public transportation isn’t an option, nor is riding a bike at that distance. Driving a car that gets about 38 miles per gallon, it adds up to about 16,773 pounds of CO2 (7.6 metric tons) per year. Inspired by the California ‘Clean Air’ day in early October, I finally did something about it.

I’m not able to retire yet and I’m not ready to buy a new electric car that has the range I would need. So I’ve decided to buy carbon offsets that cover my commuting for the year. For one year of driving to work, 4 days a week, it cost me $83.70 to buy offsets through Terrapass. That’s much cheaper than buying a new electric car or trying to purchase a used hybrid for incrementally better gas mileage. Terrapass uses the carbon offset payments to invest in: