On one hand, you can continue to live your life exactly as before, and simply pay to ‘offset’ the effect it has on the climate. In other words, choose one of the websites that exist to offset your carbon footprint (see page 3), which will calculate how much CO2 that flight to Paris will generate and plant the corresponding amount of trees to neutralise it.
This is particularly an option for manufacturers and companies who can’t avoid creating at least some CO2, and is called carbon sequestration.
However, critics argue that simply paying to neutralize your destructive behaviour encourages complacency about the seriousness of the threat, and that the effectiveness of the projects is impossible to determine. There are also suggestions that the projects can be detrimental to the local communities charged with executing them.
While this may make you feel better about yourself, the alternative – and many feel better - option is to modify our lifestyles.
Big Changes
• Change your car or vehicle to a hybrid that runs partly on electricity – take a look at the DfT Act on CO2 website for comparisons.
• Take less flights – use the train or ferry instead.
• Install solar panels or wind turbines on your house –see the Energy Saving Trust website for grants.
• Get your financial services from green providers.
• Grow your own food in the garden or allotment.
• Install loft and cavity wall installation.
• Replace an old inefficient boiler.
Everyday Changes • Ensure the dishwasher and washing machine are full before running a cycle.
• Shop locally and if you have to drive, shop weekly rather than every other day.
• Buy food, such as wine and fruit, and clothing that hasn’t travelled from the other side of the world.
• Use less packaging (CO2 is produced during its manufacture).
• Switch off rather than use standby on appliances.
• Favour companies that manufacture using less emissions.
• Invest or donate to such companies.
• Switch to a ‘green’ energy supplier.
• Recycle, as it takes less energy to reuse glass and plastics than to source from new.
• Replace old light bulbs with energy efficient ones.
• Dispose of products thoughtfully.
• Use public transport.
• Turn the heating down 1°C at the thermostat.
• Compost vegetable waste.
• Support charities that aim to prevent the destruction of CO2-absorbing forests.
