The first step is understanding what's causing the problem. Global warming results, in large part, from the accumulation of so-called greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere. These include carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and aerosols. One reason they're accumulating is the increased burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. The other is increased deforestation. (You may remember from high school biology class that trees suck up carbon dioxide and turn it into wood.)
The US is the largest producer of GHGs. In fact, we produce 23 percent of the globe's GHG emissions, even though we make up only 5 percent of the world population. And, we produce twice as many GHGs per capita as Europeans do, despite having a similar standard of living.
A responsible national policy on global warming would include regulation of greenhouse gas production. But the Bush administration has refused to sign on to international global warming protocols and has refused, even, to acknowledge that global warming is an important problem. To counter this, California Congressman Henry Waxman has put together the Safe Climate Act, which would regulate greenhouse gas levels. Please urge your elected officials to support this very important bill. And while you're at it, ask them to support the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, sponsored jointly by Senators Barbara Boxer and Bernie Sanders.
Even without acts of Congress, and a new President , there are things you can do to help stop global warming. They break down into two categories. The first involves reducing your GHG emissions. The second involves offsetting them by investing in things, such as renewable energy, that reduce the total amount of GHGs in the atmosphere.
REDUCE
Most greenhouse gases come from two sources: the internal combustion engine and the power plant.
In the area of transportation, there are lots of ways you can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Hoof it! Whenever possible, walk, bike or take public transportation. (In fact, choosing to live in a city, such as New York, where you can take advantage of these low-impact forms of transportation is one of the most important environmental decisions you can make.)
Behind the Wheel: To produce the fewest GHGs and get the best mileage, drive at 45-60 miles an hour, make sure your car is tuned up and your tires are properly inflated.
Idling: When you idle, you create a lot of greenhouse gases while going nowhere. By contrast, shutting off your engine and restarting it uses only 10 seconds worth of gas. (In other words, if you're going to stand still for longer than it takes to read this sentence, shut off your engine.)
Likewise, experts say "warming up" your car on cold days is unnecessary. The best way to warm up your car, they say, is to drive it.
Buying a New or Used Car? Get the most fuel-efficient model possible. One type of vehicle to consider is a gas-electric hybrid. At slow speeds and while standing still, these cars and SUVs run on battery power that your vehicle generates in the process of driving.
As a result, many (but not all) hybrids get great mileage. High-mileage hybrids produce only one-half to two-thirds the GHGs of regular cars and SUVs. There are even tax breaks available to people who purchase new hybrids.
There are also regular (non-hybrid) cars that are easier on the environment than their peers.
Want to know which cars are greenest? Visit www.greenercars.com, the website of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. Also check out the California Air Resources Board's Drive Clean website (www.driveclean.ca.gov), or the US Environmental Protection Agency's Green Vehicle Guide, www.epa.gov/greenvehicles. (Caution: The EPA site is very clunky.)
Roadside Assistance: It turns out that the American Automobile Association, better known as Triple A, is an environmentalist's nightmare. The group lobbies consistently against emissions and mileage standards and against increased funding for public transportation.
Who knew there was an environmentally friendly alternative? The Better World Club (www.betterworldclub.com; 866-238-1137) has a roadside assistance program that's as reliable as Triple A's, covers domestic partners, offers roadside assistance for bikes (!), and sponsors a greenhouse gas offset program. (More on offsets below.) They also provide links for renting hybrids and other green vehicles, have an eco-tourism business and sell car insurance.
The Friendly Skies: Unfortunately, air travel is terrible for the environment. Not only do aircraft engines produce lots of GHGs, but they do it high up in the atmosphere, where those gases cause more trouble.
So take the train instead of the shuttle. And try to schedule vacations and business meetings closer to home.
If you do fly, make it a habit to offset the GHGs your travel creates. One way of doing that is to send a tax-deductible donation to the GHG offset program of the Better World Club's Better World Foundation. They recommend $11 for a roundtrip, domestic flight and $22 for an international one. (Make the check out to The Tides Foundation and send it to The Better World Club, Attn: Donations, 20 NW 5th Avenue Suite #100, Portland, OR 97209.)
Or, better yet, book your ticket through Better World's travel division, and they'll pay the price of offsetting your travel themselves.
ELECTRICITY:
Power plants are one of the nation's largest generators of greenhouse gases. In New York and in many other parts of the country, you can choose to receive your electricity from a supplier that generates energy from non-polluting sources. (The juice still comes through the same power lines and is billed the same way.)
Big Apple-area residential, commercial, institutional and government electric customers, including those in New York City, Westchester, Orange and Rockland counties, can switch to Con Ed Solutions' Green Power (www.conedsolutions.com; 888-320-8991).
Con Ed's Green Power is 35 percent wind, 65 percent low-impact hydroelectric. The electricity costs only 4 percent more than the usual power supplied by Con Ed, plus there's a $25 rebate for new customers and a discount on the 4 percent sales tax, so you can get green power, or their new 100 percent wind power option, for not much more than you're paying now.
And, on Long Island, the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) has its own version of Green Power. LIPA doesn't generate the Green Power directly but helps customers buy it from green power suppliers. LIPA also offers a "Solar Pioneers” program that offers and explains rebates and tax credits to homeowners who install solar energy generating equipment in their homes. You can find out more about LIPA's clean-energy options by checking out its website, www.lipower.org/residential/green.html, or by calling its energy conservation hotline, toll-free, at 800-692-2626.
Want to know more about New York State's other green power options? Call, toll-free, 866-GRN-POWER (866-476-7697), or visit the state's Public Service Commission's website, www.askpsc.com. (This is, unfortunately, a clunky, poorly designed website.)
Outside of New York, green power options are also available. As in the New York City area, some of those options involve switching to the green power option offered by the local utility company. To find out whether green power is available in your area, check out the website of the Center for Resource Solutions, www.green-e.org, (888-63-GREEN) and click on "Renewable Energy For Your Home." There, you can search by state to find suppliers who can provide you with renewable energy.
In areas where there are no direct green power suppliers (and, actually, even in areas where there are), you can purchase a kind of virtual green power, through a mechanism known as green tags.
The subject of green tags is a little hard to explain. But, essentially, when you buy green tags, you help bring more renewable energy into the national energy mix, and remove some fossil-fuel-powered energy, by underwriting the slightly higher cost of producing renewable power. In essence, the money you pay for green tags—often less that $10 a month—provides funding to build more green-power-generating facilities. Buying green tags ensures that your electricity purchases don't pollute and don't contribute to global warming.
You can buy green tags directly from a green energy generator or from a third-party group that sells green tags. The www.green-e.org website will instruct you how to purchase green tags and offers a number of green tags suppliers who service both residential and commercial customers. And, some of these groups are non-profits or donate their green tags to non-profits that work against global warming, so the money you spend is tax deductible. (For tax-deductible options, check out the Bonneville Environmental Foundation [www.greentagsusa.org; 866-233-8247] and Native Energy's Windbuilders and Remooable Energy projects [www.nativeenergy.com; 800-924-6826].)
Yet another way to switch to a green power supplier is to visit www.newwindenergy.com, the website of New Wind Energy, a clean energy supplier. (You can also call them toll-free at 866-WIND-123.) On New Wind Energy's website, click on "Buy Wind Today" in the upper left hand corner of the home page and you'll be walked through some of the options available in your area. The site even allows you to switch to clean power via the web.
And, if none of that works for you, check with your local electric company or public service commission for green power options.
At Home: There are lots of ways to reduce your home electricity consumption. One is to check out the fridge. Refrigerators eat up approximately 30 percent of all household electricity. Newer models are significantly more energy efficient than older ones. So, a new refrigerator may pay for itself in energy savings alone. That goes double for air conditioners. (Refrigerators and air conditioners contain the ozone-layer-shredding coolant known as Freon. So do freezers, dehumidifiers, water coolers and other appliances. In New York City, if you want to dispose if any appliance that contains Freon, you're required by law to schedule a Freon-recovery appointment with the Department of Sanitation. You can contact them by phone at 311. Outside NYC, check with your local department of sanitation or environmental protection.)
You can make sure you're getting the most energy-efficient appliances, TVs, stereos, computers, washer-dryers and other household items by looking for the Energy Star label, which the US Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy award to the most energy-efficient models in each appliance category.
Also, next time you need light bulbs, try compact fluorescents. Available at many hardware stores, they're more expensive than regular lightbulbs initially, but save you a ton of money in the long run because they use significantly less energy and last a lot longer than regular light bulbs.
And, one more word about air conditioning. It's a big energy drain. In fact, fans use only one-tenth the energy that air conditioners use. So, whenever possible, open up the windows and turn on your fan.
OFFSET
Offsetting is basically taking action to compensate for the greenhouse gases we create. For instance, the Better World Foundation uses the money it gets in donations to replace antiquated, oil-burning boilers in the Portland, Oregon public schools. The newer, cleaner heating systems reduce the school system's GHG emissions.
Want to offset your GHGs? The best way to do that is to invest in projects, such as wind farms and solar power arrays, that generate renewable energy and thereby decrease the amount of fossil-fuel-powered electricity we use.
There are a number of great groups that do this. The two most highly ranked in a recent survey are Native Energy, which uses tax-deductible donations to help build clean-energy-generating wind farms and other green energy projects, and The Climate Trust, which is involved in similar endeavors. On the websites of both groups, you can use online calculators to figure out how many tons of GHGs you produce each year, and then calculate how much it will cost you in tax-deductible donations to offset them.
You can also offset your GHG emissions by investing in tree-planting. Experts consider this a less reliable method of offsetting because the trees you plant may not survive for any number of reasons—they may not grow and develop into mature trees or they may get cut down.
Still, if planting trees appeals to you, a bunch of groups can help you do that. (In fact, trees do great things: they produce oxygen, filter pollutants from air and water, reduce flooding, prevent drought, cool their surroundings, and provide habitat for wildlife, to name just a few.)
At www.americanforests.org, the online calculator helps you figure out the number of trees necessary to gooble up all the carbon dioxide you produce. (The trees cost a dollar each; the average American household can offset its annual GHG production for about 48 bucks.)
American Forests' webpage iconography is slightly confusing, so be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the webpage to find out how many trees you need to plant. Then, you can purchase those trees from the same website.
Or, take that number and visit the websites of other tree-planting organizations such as Sustainable Harvest, International (www.sustainableharvest.org), which plants trees to fight deforestation and poverty in Central America, or Kenya's Green Belt Movement (www.greenbeltmovement.org), which does similar work in Kenya. (Their founder, Wangari Maathai, won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for this important work.)
And, if you own your own home, consider planting trees around or on top of it. Scientists estimate that each tree planted in a residential setting offsets 14 times the amount of carbon dioxide it consumes by naturally cooling the area around it in summer and keeping it protected against the elements in winter.
The US is the largest producer of GHGs. In fact, we produce 23 percent of the globe's GHG emissions, even though we make up only 5 percent of the world population. And, we produce twice as many GHGs per capita as Europeans do, despite having a similar standard of living.
A responsible national policy on global warming would include regulation of greenhouse gas production. But the Bush administration has refused to sign on to international global warming protocols and has refused, even, to acknowledge that global warming is an important problem. To counter this, California Congressman Henry Waxman has put together the Safe Climate Act, which would regulate greenhouse gas levels. Please urge your elected officials to support this very important bill. And while you're at it, ask them to support the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, sponsored jointly by Senators Barbara Boxer and Bernie Sanders.
Even without acts of Congress, and a new President , there are things you can do to help stop global warming. They break down into two categories. The first involves reducing your GHG emissions. The second involves offsetting them by investing in things, such as renewable energy, that reduce the total amount of GHGs in the atmosphere.
REDUCE
Most greenhouse gases come from two sources: the internal combustion engine and the power plant.
In the area of transportation, there are lots of ways you can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Hoof it! Whenever possible, walk, bike or take public transportation. (In fact, choosing to live in a city, such as New York, where you can take advantage of these low-impact forms of transportation is one of the most important environmental decisions you can make.)
Behind the Wheel: To produce the fewest GHGs and get the best mileage, drive at 45-60 miles an hour, make sure your car is tuned up and your tires are properly inflated.
Idling: When you idle, you create a lot of greenhouse gases while going nowhere. By contrast, shutting off your engine and restarting it uses only 10 seconds worth of gas. (In other words, if you're going to stand still for longer than it takes to read this sentence, shut off your engine.)
Likewise, experts say "warming up" your car on cold days is unnecessary. The best way to warm up your car, they say, is to drive it.
Buying a New or Used Car? Get the most fuel-efficient model possible. One type of vehicle to consider is a gas-electric hybrid. At slow speeds and while standing still, these cars and SUVs run on battery power that your vehicle generates in the process of driving.
As a result, many (but not all) hybrids get great mileage. High-mileage hybrids produce only one-half to two-thirds the GHGs of regular cars and SUVs. There are even tax breaks available to people who purchase new hybrids.
There are also regular (non-hybrid) cars that are easier on the environment than their peers.
Want to know which cars are greenest? Visit www.greenercars.com, the website of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. Also check out the California Air Resources Board's Drive Clean website (www.driveclean.ca.gov), or the US Environmental Protection Agency's Green Vehicle Guide, www.epa.gov/greenvehicles. (Caution: The EPA site is very clunky.)
Roadside Assistance: It turns out that the American Automobile Association, better known as Triple A, is an environmentalist's nightmare. The group lobbies consistently against emissions and mileage standards and against increased funding for public transportation.
Who knew there was an environmentally friendly alternative? The Better World Club (www.betterworldclub.com; 866-238-1137) has a roadside assistance program that's as reliable as Triple A's, covers domestic partners, offers roadside assistance for bikes (!), and sponsors a greenhouse gas offset program. (More on offsets below.) They also provide links for renting hybrids and other green vehicles, have an eco-tourism business and sell car insurance.
The Friendly Skies: Unfortunately, air travel is terrible for the environment. Not only do aircraft engines produce lots of GHGs, but they do it high up in the atmosphere, where those gases cause more trouble.
So take the train instead of the shuttle. And try to schedule vacations and business meetings closer to home.
If you do fly, make it a habit to offset the GHGs your travel creates. One way of doing that is to send a tax-deductible donation to the GHG offset program of the Better World Club's Better World Foundation. They recommend $11 for a roundtrip, domestic flight and $22 for an international one. (Make the check out to The Tides Foundation and send it to The Better World Club, Attn: Donations, 20 NW 5th Avenue Suite #100, Portland, OR 97209.)
Or, better yet, book your ticket through Better World's travel division, and they'll pay the price of offsetting your travel themselves.
ELECTRICITY:
Power plants are one of the nation's largest generators of greenhouse gases. In New York and in many other parts of the country, you can choose to receive your electricity from a supplier that generates energy from non-polluting sources. (The juice still comes through the same power lines and is billed the same way.)
Big Apple-area residential, commercial, institutional and government electric customers, including those in New York City, Westchester, Orange and Rockland counties, can switch to Con Ed Solutions' Green Power (www.conedsolutions.com; 888-320-8991).
Con Ed's Green Power is 35 percent wind, 65 percent low-impact hydroelectric. The electricity costs only 4 percent more than the usual power supplied by Con Ed, plus there's a $25 rebate for new customers and a discount on the 4 percent sales tax, so you can get green power, or their new 100 percent wind power option, for not much more than you're paying now.
And, on Long Island, the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) has its own version of Green Power. LIPA doesn't generate the Green Power directly but helps customers buy it from green power suppliers. LIPA also offers a "Solar Pioneers” program that offers and explains rebates and tax credits to homeowners who install solar energy generating equipment in their homes. You can find out more about LIPA's clean-energy options by checking out its website, www.lipower.org/residential/green.html, or by calling its energy conservation hotline, toll-free, at 800-692-2626.
Want to know more about New York State's other green power options? Call, toll-free, 866-GRN-POWER (866-476-7697), or visit the state's Public Service Commission's website, www.askpsc.com. (This is, unfortunately, a clunky, poorly designed website.)
Outside of New York, green power options are also available. As in the New York City area, some of those options involve switching to the green power option offered by the local utility company. To find out whether green power is available in your area, check out the website of the Center for Resource Solutions, www.green-e.org, (888-63-GREEN) and click on "Renewable Energy For Your Home." There, you can search by state to find suppliers who can provide you with renewable energy.
In areas where there are no direct green power suppliers (and, actually, even in areas where there are), you can purchase a kind of virtual green power, through a mechanism known as green tags.
The subject of green tags is a little hard to explain. But, essentially, when you buy green tags, you help bring more renewable energy into the national energy mix, and remove some fossil-fuel-powered energy, by underwriting the slightly higher cost of producing renewable power. In essence, the money you pay for green tags—often less that $10 a month—provides funding to build more green-power-generating facilities. Buying green tags ensures that your electricity purchases don't pollute and don't contribute to global warming.
You can buy green tags directly from a green energy generator or from a third-party group that sells green tags. The www.green-e.org website will instruct you how to purchase green tags and offers a number of green tags suppliers who service both residential and commercial customers. And, some of these groups are non-profits or donate their green tags to non-profits that work against global warming, so the money you spend is tax deductible. (For tax-deductible options, check out the Bonneville Environmental Foundation [www.greentagsusa.org; 866-233-8247] and Native Energy's Windbuilders and Remooable Energy projects [www.nativeenergy.com; 800-924-6826].)
Yet another way to switch to a green power supplier is to visit www.newwindenergy.com, the website of New Wind Energy, a clean energy supplier. (You can also call them toll-free at 866-WIND-123.) On New Wind Energy's website, click on "Buy Wind Today" in the upper left hand corner of the home page and you'll be walked through some of the options available in your area. The site even allows you to switch to clean power via the web.
And, if none of that works for you, check with your local electric company or public service commission for green power options.
At Home: There are lots of ways to reduce your home electricity consumption. One is to check out the fridge. Refrigerators eat up approximately 30 percent of all household electricity. Newer models are significantly more energy efficient than older ones. So, a new refrigerator may pay for itself in energy savings alone. That goes double for air conditioners. (Refrigerators and air conditioners contain the ozone-layer-shredding coolant known as Freon. So do freezers, dehumidifiers, water coolers and other appliances. In New York City, if you want to dispose if any appliance that contains Freon, you're required by law to schedule a Freon-recovery appointment with the Department of Sanitation. You can contact them by phone at 311. Outside NYC, check with your local department of sanitation or environmental protection.)
You can make sure you're getting the most energy-efficient appliances, TVs, stereos, computers, washer-dryers and other household items by looking for the Energy Star label, which the US Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy award to the most energy-efficient models in each appliance category.
Also, next time you need light bulbs, try compact fluorescents. Available at many hardware stores, they're more expensive than regular lightbulbs initially, but save you a ton of money in the long run because they use significantly less energy and last a lot longer than regular light bulbs.
And, one more word about air conditioning. It's a big energy drain. In fact, fans use only one-tenth the energy that air conditioners use. So, whenever possible, open up the windows and turn on your fan.
OFFSET
Offsetting is basically taking action to compensate for the greenhouse gases we create. For instance, the Better World Foundation uses the money it gets in donations to replace antiquated, oil-burning boilers in the Portland, Oregon public schools. The newer, cleaner heating systems reduce the school system's GHG emissions.
Want to offset your GHGs? The best way to do that is to invest in projects, such as wind farms and solar power arrays, that generate renewable energy and thereby decrease the amount of fossil-fuel-powered electricity we use.
There are a number of great groups that do this. The two most highly ranked in a recent survey are Native Energy, which uses tax-deductible donations to help build clean-energy-generating wind farms and other green energy projects, and The Climate Trust, which is involved in similar endeavors. On the websites of both groups, you can use online calculators to figure out how many tons of GHGs you produce each year, and then calculate how much it will cost you in tax-deductible donations to offset them.
You can also offset your GHG emissions by investing in tree-planting. Experts consider this a less reliable method of offsetting because the trees you plant may not survive for any number of reasons—they may not grow and develop into mature trees or they may get cut down.
Still, if planting trees appeals to you, a bunch of groups can help you do that. (In fact, trees do great things: they produce oxygen, filter pollutants from air and water, reduce flooding, prevent drought, cool their surroundings, and provide habitat for wildlife, to name just a few.)
At www.americanforests.org, the online calculator helps you figure out the number of trees necessary to gooble up all the carbon dioxide you produce. (The trees cost a dollar each; the average American household can offset its annual GHG production for about 48 bucks.)
American Forests' webpage iconography is slightly confusing, so be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the webpage to find out how many trees you need to plant. Then, you can purchase those trees from the same website.
Or, take that number and visit the websites of other tree-planting organizations such as Sustainable Harvest, International (www.sustainableharvest.org), which plants trees to fight deforestation and poverty in Central America, or Kenya's Green Belt Movement (www.greenbeltmovement.org), which does similar work in Kenya. (Their founder, Wangari Maathai, won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for this important work.)
And, if you own your own home, consider planting trees around or on top of it. Scientists estimate that each tree planted in a residential setting offsets 14 times the amount of carbon dioxide it consumes by naturally cooling the area around it in summer and keeping it protected against the elements in winter.
