Although we have all heard that life would not be sustainable if everyone in the world had the same standard of living that Americans do, I usually tend to ignore this and think that for the most part we will be able to electrify everything and not change our way of life that much. But the US is still second in emitting greenhouse gases (next to china), and California is the second largest emitter of US states (behind Texas). Two thirds of emissions are linked to household consumption.  The graph below is from an article on how consumption affects greenhouse gases.  [BRICS is Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.]

The NY Times has a quiz about things you could do that have an affect on the size of your carbon footprint. If you are interested in actions you can take as a consumer — apart from what you do as an activist — this quiz will stimulate your thought processes.  Remember though, it is asking about your consumption choices, not the global picture of what causes most emissions. So for example, you might (like me) think that avoiding long air trips would not have a large impact because air travel only accounts for about 2.5% of warming emissions. But that would be wrong because reducing long flights would cut one of the major sources of emissions that consumers can control. Try it, it’s fun. [The faint little squiggles you can see in the middle option are a red herring.] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/15/opinion/how-reduce-carbon-footprint-climate-change.html?

If the quiz is behind a paywall for you, check out the article it is based on which is also the source of the graph above: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab8589

If you are interested in policies that could help consumers make better choices see Table 3 in the article.

Dan Chandler, Steering Committee


 

The 350 Humboldt letter writing group is meeting again Sunday December 18 – TONIGHT.

No meeting next week. Since we started writing in May 2020 we have written (conservatively) over 16,320 cards and letters, most to get out the vote for climate champions. (Six people on average, writing 20 letters a week on average, for 136 weeks.) We would love to have you join us. Each of us can share our favorite ways to write.

Sunday, 7pm, on zoom:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86943045708?pwd=clVqWVJZNEFQSVl0QWd6VCtOZGtWZz09