While most environmentally-consicous people want to take action to fight climate change, many of these people do not know exactly what actions to take. Many media outlets and classrooms tout actions you can take to reduce your carbon footprint, but the relative impact of those actions is seldom discussed. For example, it is well established that recycling and planting trees are good environmental actions, but most people would not know which has a bigger impact and why.

This section will systematically evaluate the different actions you can take to reduce your carbon footprint and how big of an impact each action you take has on climate change.

Low Impact Actions (<0.2 tCO2e)

While these actions have the smallest relative impact, they still help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere. Many of these actions are very simple and easy to implement in your life.

1. Upgrade Light bulbs. Replace all the incandescent or halogen light bulbs in your living space with LED lights. LED lightbulbs on average use 75% less energy and last 25 times longer then an incandescent bulb (U.S Department of Energy). LED lights are not only better for the environment, but your wallet too.

2. Plant a tree. The average mature tree removes 48 pounds carbon dioxide from the atmosphere a year (Ten Million Trees Partnership). Trees not only remove atmospheric carbon dioxide but improve air quality and provide vital habitats for biodiversity.

3. Conserve Water. Pumping water into faucets, showers, fountains, etc. is extremely energy intensive. By simply consuming less water through shorter showers, turning off water when brushing your teeth and fixing any leaks, you can save energy, money and reduce your carbon footprint. Click here for more ways to save water.

Some other low-impact actions are reduce lawn mowing, minimize waste, buy organic food, and compost.

Moderate Impact Actions (0.2 - 0.8 tCO2e)

Moderate Impact Actions are extremely crucial because most of these actions are still easy to implement into your daily life without making any drastic changes, but are way more effective at reducing your carbon footprint then the previously discussed low impact actions.

1. When possible take public transit, walk, or bike to your destination instead of driving. Subways and metros produce on average of 76% lower greenhouse gas emissions per passenger mile than an average single-person car ride (U.S Department of Transportation). If it’s a short distance try biking or walking, as both options emit no greenhouse gases.

2. Conserve energy in your home. Using less energy in your home everyday leads to less greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The best part is that there are countless ways to save energy including using energy efficiency appliances, installing a smart meter, and lowering the thermostat. In fact, click here for 120 different ways to save energy. This is a comprehensive list of energy saving activities, many of which can significantly reduce your daily energy consumption, utility bill and carbon footprint.

3. Eat local foods. Eating local foods is defined as food grown in your area and food that in-season. Buying food from your local state drastically reduces the greenhouse gases from transporting food across the country through a supply chain system. you will also be supporting local farmers and businesses when buying local! Buying out of season foods meant that extra water and resources were needed to produce that food, which raises the carbon footprint of that food. For example, oranges grown out of season in June to October require extra water and resources because they are not supposed to be growing then, so buy oranges in-season during November through May.

4. Recycling. Recycling is one of, if not the most, cited example of how you can help fight climate change. Recycling not only reduces the amount of waste in landfills, it prevents the mining or production of new materials. Mining for natural resources, transporting these raw materials to a factory, and then creating new glass, plastic, etc. all require immense amounts of energy and produce lots of greenhouse gases. All these processes contribute to environmental degradation as well. By recycling old materials, new materials can be made with less energy (and less greenhouse gases) since the recycled materials have already been refined and processed. (Stanford University Recycling)

High Impact Actions (> 0.8 tCO2e)

These High Impact Actions are changes that you can do to significantly reduce your carbon footprint. Unfortunately, many of these actions require drastic lifestyle changes or raise moral considerations. For each action, I will also discuss a second-best alternative. While this second-best alternative might not be as effective as the original High Impact Action, it is still a significant way to reduce your carbon footprint without drastically changing your lifestyle.

1. Eat a plant based diet. The production of fruits, vegetables and legumes is much better for the environment then animal products. Beef, pork, chicken and other animal agriculture accounts for roughly 75% of all agriculture greenhouse gas emissions come from animals and it takes 1,800 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine). Plants require a fraction of greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption to grow, plus they provide a multitude of health benefits. Cutting out meat from your diet has significant positive environmental repercussions.

   1. Second-best alternative: Replacing red meat products (beef, pork, etc.) with chicken cuts your dietary carbon footprint by 50% (National Geographic). Beef requires 10x as many resources as chicken, so by substituting chicken for beef you can drastically cut your dietary carbon footprint without giving up meat.

2. Live life without a car. It is no secret that traditional cars produce a lot of carbon dioxide. The average car produces 4.6 metric tons of CO2 per year (U.S Environmental Protection Agency) and there are over a billion cars in the world. Switching all your transportation methods to walking, biking or public transit significantly reduce your yearly carbon footprint.

   • Second-best alternative: Replace your traditional gasoline or diesel vehicle with an electric car. Cars powered by electricity instead of gasoline produce less emissions than gasoline or diesel powered cars. It is difficult to give up car usage, and an electric vehicle can be a practical alternative to reduce your carbon emissions without sacrificing driving entirely.

3. Avoid one roundtrip transatlantic flight. Traveling a long distance flight, which I will define as the distance from New York to London, 3,500 miles (a standard transatlantic flight), has huge environmental implications. Each passenger on a New York to London flight emits more carbon dioxide during that flight than the average person in 56 undeveloped countries will emit in an entire year (BBC). Reducing non-essential travel across the world can drastically cut your carbon footprint.

   • Second-best alternative: Many people are forced to travel across continents for business, to see family or simply for vacation. There are ways to mitigate your environmental impact from flying though. Many airlines and online websites offer carbon offsets for flights. These websites calculate your carbon emissions from the flight, and suggest a donation amount you can make to environmental projects or organizations. The suggested donation amount is determined to ~ roughly ~ offset your specific flight’s environmental impact by financially supporting projects that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Click here to explore a carbon offsetting website. Additionally, many airlines provide you with a carbon offsetting option during your purchase as well.

4. Have one fewer child. This is a very difficult moral topic to talk about, as I believe everyone should have the choice to have their own family. Unfortunately, fewer humans on the planet lead to substantially less emissions each year. Referring to the graphic cited above, every other action previously discussed will reduce your yearly tons of CO2 emissions by between 0.1 and 3.0 yearly tons of carbon dioxide. Having one fewer child would reduce your yearly tons of CO2 emissions by almost 60 tons per year, which is an astronomically high amount compared to the other actions discussed. As difficult as it is to discuss, this is unequivocably the most effective way to reduce your environmental impact.

   • Second-best alternative: Adoption is a way to have a family without adding another human to the world’s population, since every human produces additional greenhouse gas emissions and strains Earth’s natural resources even further. There are plenty of babies and toddlers who are already on this planet that need homes and families.