Want to fight climate change? Here are the 7 critical life c
Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2016 10:35 amWant to fight climate change? Here are the 7 critical life changes you should make
[ http://grist.org/climate-energy/want-to ... kly-static ]
By Heather Smith on 19 Feb 2016
A few months ago, the U.S. and 195 other countries signed this thing in Paris in which all parties involved kind of sort of agreed to stop messing with the world’s climate. [ https://grist.org/climate-energy/heres- ... agreement/ ] It was very exciting.
So what if we, as Americans, were going to join in as individuals in order to help the U.S. meet its emissions goals? What would we do differently? Two researchers at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute [ http://www.umich.edu/~umtriswt/ ], Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle, recently set out to answer those questions. (Here is the abstract of their report. [ http://www.umich.edu/~umtriswt/PDF/UMTR ... nglish.pdf ] ) Their conclusion:
The largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions is making things (industry, clocking in at 29 percent of greenhouse gas emissions). After that, there’s moving people and things around (transportation, 27 percent), then the energy we use at home (17 percent) followed by the energy used by non-industrial businesses (17 percent) and the energy used in agriculture (10 percent).
Most of this energy is stuff that you don’t have any control over: If you are looking at a row of lawn chairs at the store, you don’t have any way of knowing how much energy it took to produce each one. You cannot, on a personal level, decide to have your contact-lens solution delivered to your local pharmacy by cargo bicycle instead of long-haul trucker.
So, given the imperfections of this world, what is a lone wolf such as yourself to do?
Here are some conclusions gleaned from this study:
1. Buy the most fuel-efficient car you can afford, then drive it as little as possible
You might notice that Sivak and Schoettle don’t even consider the option of going without a car — even though their own graph suggests that, if having an efficient car is good, having none at all is even better: (CHART)
MORE:
[ http://grist.org/climate-energy/want-to ... kly-static ]
[ http://grist.org/climate-energy/want-to ... kly-static ]
By Heather Smith on 19 Feb 2016
A few months ago, the U.S. and 195 other countries signed this thing in Paris in which all parties involved kind of sort of agreed to stop messing with the world’s climate. [ https://grist.org/climate-energy/heres- ... agreement/ ] It was very exciting.
So what if we, as Americans, were going to join in as individuals in order to help the U.S. meet its emissions goals? What would we do differently? Two researchers at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute [ http://www.umich.edu/~umtriswt/ ], Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle, recently set out to answer those questions. (Here is the abstract of their report. [ http://www.umich.edu/~umtriswt/PDF/UMTR ... nglish.pdf ] ) Their conclusion:
The largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions is making things (industry, clocking in at 29 percent of greenhouse gas emissions). After that, there’s moving people and things around (transportation, 27 percent), then the energy we use at home (17 percent) followed by the energy used by non-industrial businesses (17 percent) and the energy used in agriculture (10 percent).
Most of this energy is stuff that you don’t have any control over: If you are looking at a row of lawn chairs at the store, you don’t have any way of knowing how much energy it took to produce each one. You cannot, on a personal level, decide to have your contact-lens solution delivered to your local pharmacy by cargo bicycle instead of long-haul trucker.
So, given the imperfections of this world, what is a lone wolf such as yourself to do?
Here are some conclusions gleaned from this study:
1. Buy the most fuel-efficient car you can afford, then drive it as little as possible
You might notice that Sivak and Schoettle don’t even consider the option of going without a car — even though their own graph suggests that, if having an efficient car is good, having none at all is even better: (CHART)
MORE:
[ http://grist.org/climate-energy/want-to ... kly-static ]