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It's not a perfect solution, but you can make a big dent in this yourself remarkably easily by carbon offsetting all your own emissions right now: https://www.g

It's not a perfect solution, but you can make a big dent in this yourself remarkably easily by carbon offsetting all your own emissions right now: https://www.goclimateneutral.org/ https://www.goclimateneutral.org/ Reducing your emissions completely is difficult. As others here have said, there are many emissions you can't practically reduce yourself, from concrete production to necessary transportation. Even where you can't reduce your personal impact though, you can reduce worldwide carbon output by an equivalent amount instead, by offsetting: directly donating to equivalent reductions elsewhere in the world that just need funding. There's other providers too (e.g. https://offset.earth/ https://offset.earth/), the only trick is to find somewhere that's cheap per-tonne offset (you should be able to do it for around $4 per tonne), with projects that are vetted & certified. Some more details & links to the kind of projects that offsetting funds here: https://www.goclimateneutral.org/our_projects https://www.goclimateneutral.org/our_projects.

WhompingWindows 7y ago
You have to be very careful when purchasing offsets. Many of them are not legitimate and are not overseen properly. https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/as-more-people-buy-carbon-offsets-criticisms-grow https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/as-more-people-...
0xffff2 7y ago
>you can make a big dent How so? Practically by definition you personally can make an almost incomprehensibly minuscule dent. This is not an issue that is going to be solved by personal action.
- pimterry 7y ago
  Proportional to other possible personal actions you can take, I mean. It's easy & fairly affordable for example to offset 10x your own personal emissions. For an average person in the US that would cost about $70 a month (about 20 tonnes/year * $4/tonne * 10 = $800/year). Meanwhile it's clearly impossible to 1000% reduce your personal emissions, no matter the sacrifices. Completely agree we need large-scale action from nations & corporations too, but if you're looking for a way you can make a difference right now then offsetting is one of your most direct & effective options.
  - 0xffff2 7y ago
    A large part of the reason we're talking about this is that "possible personal actions you can take" are utterly and completely irrelevant to a problem of this scale. It's actively harmful to talk about personal action in a way that implies it makes a meaningful difference.
    - pimterry 7y ago
      This argument also applies to protesting or voting - one protestor/voter alone makes no difference - or almost any possible attempt at a solution. What's the alternative? One person voting or acting makes only a small difference, but doing so as one of many eventually has an effect. Corporations and governments will move only because of the cumulative economic and democratic incentives from many many personal actions.

WhompingWindows 7y ago

You have to be very careful when purchasing offsets. Many of them are not legitimate and are not overseen properly. https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/as-more-people-buy-carbon-offsets-criticisms-grow https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/as-more-people-...

0xffff2 7y ago

>you can make a big dent How so? Practically by definition you personally can make an almost incomprehensibly minuscule dent. This is not an issue that is going to be solved by personal action.

pimterry 7y ago
Proportional to other possible personal actions you can take, I mean. It's easy & fairly affordable for example to offset 10x your own personal emissions. For an average person in the US that would cost about $70 a month (about 20 tonnes/year * $4/tonne * 10 = $800/year). Meanwhile it's clearly impossible to 1000% reduce your personal emissions, no matter the sacrifices. Completely agree we need large-scale action from nations & corporations too, but if you're looking for a way you can make a difference right now then offsetting is one of your most direct & effective options.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  A large part of the reason we're talking about this is that "possible personal actions you can take" are utterly and completely irrelevant to a problem of this scale. It's actively harmful to talk about personal action in a way that implies it makes a meaningful difference.
  - pimterry 7y ago
    This argument also applies to protesting or voting - one protestor/voter alone makes no difference - or almost any possible attempt at a solution. What's the alternative? One person voting or acting makes only a small difference, but doing so as one of many eventually has an effect. Corporations and governments will move only because of the cumulative economic and democratic incentives from many many personal actions.