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I know and I care but short of looking at myself and my family and implementing better life style practices that we may or not be able to afford what do I do?

I know and I care but short of looking at myself and my family and implementing better life style practices that we may or not be able to afford what do I do? I vote and I know the biggest impact has to come from world governments but even voting seems like a small, hollow step that does nothing in the short run to help the situation. What else can one person do to make a difference?

ryanmercer 7y ago
There's a lot an individual can do to minimize their own impact (but sadly, unless we get a significant percentage of the population to change, it isn't going to matter much). Here are a few off the top of my head: - Give up meat. If you don't want to give up meat, chicken = far less greenhouse gasses than beef per measure of meat (Beef requires "around 28 times more land than the other options, 11 times more water and resulted in 5 times more greenhouse gas emissions" https://www.iflscience.com/environment/new-study-says-beef-10x-more-damaging-environment-chicken-pork-or-dairy-foods/ https://www.iflscience.com/environment/new-study-says-beef-1... ). - Try and buy local - Try and buy with minimal packaging, buying bulk can help a lot with this. 50lb bag of rice instead of 1lb, 10lb bag of beans instead of 1lb, etc. - Find fun things to do locally instead of deciding you just HAVE to fly to Antarctica to see the penguins because your buddy Greg and his girlfriend did. - Turn off lights when you aren't in a room, unplug stuff with phantom loads when you aren't using it, when appliances die replace with energy efficient models - Make fewer trips to the store, don't order something on Amazon every day or multiple times a day as it is going to increase the chances you'll be getting multiple packages from multiple delivers and try and limit yourself to once a week or better - never. - Instead of going to see the 376th Avengers film in the cavernous air conditioned theater with Dolby THX Rumble Bumble Ultra Eardrum-rupture Super Sound TM, watch it at home. ("figure out the energy costs, let's reference a 2011 Slate article that compares the energy costs of watching a DVD at home versus going to the theater.6 The technology at commercial cinemas eats up lots more energy than your puny flat screen. The precise amount can vary by projection bulb and by how brightly the cinema chooses to screen the film. Usually, it falls between 3.1 and 10.5 kilowatts. A typical machine projecting at a medium brightness for the running time of Green Lantern would consume about 9.6 kWh." https://business.directenergy.com/blog/2018/february/how-much-energy-does-it-take-to-fuel-valentines-day https://business.directenergy.com/blog/2018/february/how-muc... then of course factor in driving all of those speakers, the air conditioning/heating for that cavernous room etc) - Waste less, "food loss at the retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010" https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs.
- smhenderson 7y ago
  Well I won't respond to every item on your list but I do most of them or am close to being better in terms of how we as a family follow these guidelines. Some examples - I'm vegan, have been since before I worried about meat's impact on climate change. The rest of my family is not but they are pretty health conscious and eat less meat than the average I believe and do prefer chicken over red meat generally. I am obsessive about turning off things we aren't using, more for the money saved but I recently keep harping on everyone about how it helps the planet too (a little). I could be a lot better at what you called "stuff with phantom loads" though! I do try to buy bulk, we do a lot of shopping at Costco and this also helps keep the number of round trips down. As for having fun, lucky for the planet I can't really afford plane trips or even long car rides for vacations so we mostly do stay-cations... :-) Last one I'll address is the movie bit; again, lucky for the planet, I've come to loathe the theater experience as I get older and prefer waiting until I can watch at home. Even my younger children have come to see this is as a good thing as it means family time and, usually, some snacks. Anyway, thanks for the response. It helps knowing that my efforts to follow these basic rules is something others think about too. Sadly I agree that we are too few at the moment to make much difference.

ryanmercer 7y ago

There's a lot an individual can do to minimize their own impact (but sadly, unless we get a significant percentage of the population to change, it isn't going to matter much). Here are a few off the top of my head: - Give up meat. If you don't want to give up meat, chicken = far less greenhouse gasses than beef per measure of meat (Beef requires "around 28 times more land than the other options, 11 times more water and resulted in 5 times more greenhouse gas emissions" https://www.iflscience.com/environment/new-study-says-beef-10x-more-damaging-environment-chicken-pork-or-dairy-foods/ https://www.iflscience.com/environment/new-study-says-beef-1... ). - Try and buy local - Try and buy with minimal packaging, buying bulk can help a lot with this. 50lb bag of rice instead of 1lb, 10lb bag of beans instead of 1lb, etc. - Find fun things to do locally instead of deciding you just HAVE to fly to Antarctica to see the penguins because your buddy Greg and his girlfriend did. - Turn off lights when you aren't in a room, unplug stuff with phantom loads when you aren't using it, when appliances die replace with energy efficient models - Make fewer trips to the store, don't order something on Amazon every day or multiple times a day as it is going to increase the chances you'll be getting multiple packages from multiple delivers and try and limit yourself to once a week or better - never. - Instead of going to see the 376th Avengers film in the cavernous air conditioned theater with Dolby THX Rumble Bumble Ultra Eardrum-rupture Super Sound TM, watch it at home. ("figure out the energy costs, let's reference a 2011 Slate article that compares the energy costs of watching a DVD at home versus going to the theater.6 The technology at commercial cinemas eats up lots more energy than your puny flat screen. The precise amount can vary by projection bulb and by how brightly the cinema chooses to screen the film. Usually, it falls between 3.1 and 10.5 kilowatts. A typical machine projecting at a medium brightness for the running time of Green Lantern would consume about 9.6 kWh." https://business.directenergy.com/blog/2018/february/how-much-energy-does-it-take-to-fuel-valentines-day https://business.directenergy.com/blog/2018/february/how-muc... then of course factor in driving all of those speakers, the air conditioning/heating for that cavernous room etc) - Waste less, "food loss at the retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010" https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs.

smhenderson 7y ago
Well I won't respond to every item on your list but I do most of them or am close to being better in terms of how we as a family follow these guidelines. Some examples - I'm vegan, have been since before I worried about meat's impact on climate change. The rest of my family is not but they are pretty health conscious and eat less meat than the average I believe and do prefer chicken over red meat generally. I am obsessive about turning off things we aren't using, more for the money saved but I recently keep harping on everyone about how it helps the planet too (a little). I could be a lot better at what you called "stuff with phantom loads" though! I do try to buy bulk, we do a lot of shopping at Costco and this also helps keep the number of round trips down. As for having fun, lucky for the planet I can't really afford plane trips or even long car rides for vacations so we mostly do stay-cations... :-) Last one I'll address is the movie bit; again, lucky for the planet, I've come to loathe the theater experience as I get older and prefer waiting until I can watch at home. Even my younger children have come to see this is as a good thing as it means family time and, usually, some snacks. Anyway, thanks for the response. It helps knowing that my efforts to follow these basic rules is something others think about too. Sadly I agree that we are too few at the moment to make much difference.