HOW YOU CAN HELP
Assuming Personal Responsibility
Make the commitment to reduce your own carbon footprint. Together, we can signal to policymakers and businesses that consumers as a whole are ready to use energy more efficiently, to buy cleaner technologies, and use mass transit alternatives when the possibilities are available.
Become carbon-neutral, or off-set a portion of your carbon contributions. Visit our Endangered Islands Campaign for more information.
Be an environmentally-responsible consumer or investor. When shopping for a new product, review the Climate Counts Company Scorecard, which evaluates companies based on their efforts to address and mitigate negative environmental impact.
Make your next car a hybrid. Run on a combination of electricity and gasoline, hybrids are much more efficient vehicles than conventional cars or SUVs.
How green is your electricity? Calculate your personal emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants due to home or office electricity use by visiting the EPA’s Power Profiler. Read more on the site to find out how you can use electricity more efficiently and/or purchase renewable energy through your current utility company.
Exercise Everyday Energy Efficiency
- Switch off and unplug appliances and electronics when you are not using them (ie. lights, cell phone chargers, computer cords, etc). Put your computer on stand-by or shut it down; contrary to popular belief, shutting down is actually good for your computer.
- Look for the Energy Star when buying new appliances, lighting, electronics, office equipment, and other products.
- Air dry rather than machine dry your clothes.
- See Energy Star’s Guide to Home Improvement to help you reach your energy-efficiency potential at home.
- Replace conventional incandescent light-bulbs with compact florescent bulbs (CFLs), which use 75% less energy and last 10 times longer.
- Take buses, trains, trams or the subway for short or long trips; leave your car at home. Find out about local transit in your area, as well as regional transit via Amtrak and coach buses.
- Find out what materials can be recycled in your area by checking your state’s EPA website.
- In your fireplace, burn bio-wax firelogs, which produce 70 percent less carbon emissions than firewood and 80% less than natural gas.
- Drink tap water rather than buying bottled water, which wastes a great deal of plastic and has little health advantage in most places in North America and Europe. Home filtration systems are a more efficient and economical means of addressing concerns such as taste or additives.
- Find out where your food is being produced and try to buy local produce. This cuts down on the enormous carbon emissions that result from transporting food.
For a more complete guide to daily contributions, see Time Magazine’s
A Global Warming Survival Guide: 51 Things We Can Do to Save the Environment
