How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
Climate change and global warming are some of the biggest threats to life on Earth today. In fact, Antarctica has lost a whopping 119 million tons of ice between the years 1993 and 2016. Many people are concerned about global warming and the devastating effect it’s likely to wreak on all life.
Despite this, the idea of helping an entire planet heal seems overwhelming. If professionals with advanced degrees in science can’t cure the world, how can one person with no formal training in the field? Fortunately, there is one simple way to make a valuable difference – learn how to reduce your carbon footprint.
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What Is a Carbon Footprint?
A carbon footprint is how much greenhouse gas emissions a human being produces, both directly and indirectly. These emissions are produced through activities like purchasing imported foods. They can be reduced through activities like Solar Generator and Panel Kits.
How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
There are several simple and straightforward ways to reduce your carbon imprint that won’t cost you a dime. Actually, you’ll find these strategies actually save you a dime or two.
Meatless Mondays
The most effective way to immediately and drastically reduce your carbon footprint is to reduce or eliminate your meat intake. This may sound scary to meat lovers, but it doesn’t have to be. Even something as simple as cutting out meat one day per week for the year is equivalent to not driving for five weeks. If everyone in the United States participated, it would be equivalent to taking 7.6 million cars off the road.
Transportation Alternatives
Although not as effective as cutting out meat, driving less can also help save the planet. You can choose to carpool, walk, cycle, or ride public transportation. There are two bonuses to this arrangement – you can easily maintain a healthy lifestyle and you will likely save money on petrol costs.
Avoid Fast Fashion
“Fast fashion” is a relatively new term that describes cheap clothes rapidly produced to satisfy new trends. It leads to incredible wastefulness in the industry. Producers can put out new clothing at ridiculous speeds because they overproduce products. These products come from cotton cash crops sprayed with harmful pesticides. There are many steps in this supply chain that are killing the environment. Avoiding fast fashion can cost slightly more from your wallet, but not from the environment. If you have a tight budget, you can also stick to thrifting gently used items, which is also more fun.
Environmental News and More
Learning how to reduce your carbon footprint is the best way to help prevent global warming from eliminating all life on Earth. You can serve as an example to others, hopefully inspiring them to improve their carbon footprint as well.
If everyone were to try these methods, the combined effort would make a noticeably positive change in the world. Considering that these efforts are largely free, and might even save some money, there is no excuse not to start now. If you’re looking for an environmentally-conscious place to explore, don’t forget to check out our piece on the most environmentally friendly countries in the world.
