The Three Most Powerful Things You Can Do Today To Slow Greenhouse Gases: Simple, Fun, And Easy
Last week I was sitting in a bagel shop reminiscing about our city politics with an old friend. After the friend left, the guy sitting at the next table said, “I’d run for mayor but I don’t need the headache.” I smiled back at the white-bearded older man in the rusty flannel shirt and baseball cap. I replied, “Yeah, that’s gotta be a tough job.” He responded, “It’s time we had a Republican mayor again. There is so much BS going on. They’re robbing us blind.” We didn’t get too far into the conversation before I realized that this man was the perfect guy to ask about climate change.
“So what do you think about global warming?” I prodded. “We’ve always had global warming. The sun gets closer to Earth and it warms more. Anybody who understands science knows how this works.” He repeated his theory again as I sat there and politely listened. Finally, I couldn’t resist. “That’s not what the scientists say. NASA and NOAA scientists tell us that humans are irreversibly warming the earth and it is creating all kinds of problems,” I said, smiling.
He repeated his soliloquy as I listened and then proceeded to tell me that his kids both went to college, “for what it’s worth.” He repeated his theory again and then took some more diversions into other topics. We politely bantered a while longer before he headed out for the rest of his day.
I glanced at the couple sitting at the table on my opposite side. The woman looked at me and rolled her eyes, “I can’t believe there’s anybody who doesn’t believe in climate change at this point. What will it take?” We agreed that denialists like “Fred” were not likely to change their minds on climate change. After a brief introduction, I asked Mary what did she think we should be doing to mitigate greenhouse gases.
“We need a coalition. Some unifying organization to get it done,” she said. Like a lot of people, Mary didn’t know exactly what to do. She saw a lot of different solutions being proposed but she wasn’t sure which, if any, would make a real difference. And she didn’t know who to trust and she didn’t want to waste her money. Sound familiar? It turns out a lot of us are in that position. Even though over half of Americans are concerned or alarmed about climate change only 12% of us have take activist steps like calling our elected officials or joining an organization.
What Do The Experts Say?
The bestseller, Drawdown, actually calculates how many gigatons of carbon could be saved by using 80 different solutions to reducing greenhouse gases. While some of the solutions like using onshore wind turbines and eliminating HFCs in air conditioners worldwide require global agreements like the Paris Accord, other solutions are in our collective hands.
In Drawdown, reducing food waste is the number three solution, a plant-rich diet is ranked number four, educating girls and family planning are both in the top ten on the experts’ list of most impactful solutions to reduce greenhouse gases and/or sequester carbon. Paul Hawken, the editor of Drawdown, elaborates on the three most important things we can do to reduce greenhouse gases in a Bioneers interview:
The Most Powerful Steps You Can Take
“The most powerful action an individual can take is to educate their self. The second most powerful action would be to eliminate food waste in their life. We waste 40% of our food in the US. The third most powerful activity would be to change their diet. The last two are helpful in another way. They make you mindful and connected to the climate crisis every day, all day.”
These three solutions are the most powerful things we can do collectively, as individuals:
Educate ourselves and others.
Eliminate food waste.
Eat a plant-rich diet.
It’s that easy. Read valid information, go to meetings to get informed, and spread the word. Work to consciously eliminate food waste in your life and in your community. Work to reduce animal products for breakfast and lunch in your life, as Jonathan Safran Foer, author of We Are The Weather: Saving The Planet Begins At Breakfast suggests.
And then, let’s contact our senators and tell them we need structural changes to shift to renewable energy and global cooperation to reduce greenhouse gases. And keep contacting and voting until it happens.
