We are excited you want to make a commitment to live a more climate-friendly lifestyle and adopt new habits that are good for the Earth and for people! We have identified a variety of changes you can consider within three high-impact behavior areas: transport, diet, and home energy use.
In the lists below, within each category commitments are organized from smallest to largest impact. Again, we are different: some feel compelled to make big changes right away, others prefer to journey from less to more demanding commitments. What matters is to take the first step, and then to be walking, in a delicate balance between self-care and self-challenge.
A few tips:
Choose behaviors that are new for you.
Be gentle with yourself, start with a realistic commitment.
Then challenge yourself, move to commitments with the greatest impact - the options farther down each list are the ones that help the planet and people the most!
Make as many commitments as you feel inspired to follow - there is no limit!
How we travel from one place to another always has an impact on the Earth, no matter how near or far. We invite you to join us in moving around our world more thoughtfully and sustainably.
Every time you walk, cycle, rollerblade, skateboard, etc. instead of driving for 3 km (2 miles), you save one inflated balloon’s worth of carbon pollution
Instead of driving your car, try riding the bus or train 3 days per week. If you choose the bus, you can save 1 day’s worth of carbon pollution each week. If you choose the train, you can save 2 day’s worth of carbon pollution each week!
About 25% of airplane pollution happens during take-off and landing. If you have to fly, please choose the non-stop flight option whenever possible.
If you choose to commute by bus, rather than driving your own car, you can save an entire season’s worth of carbon pollution over the course of one year. And if you choose to commute by train, you’ll save nearly double that!
If you purchased a new electric car and drove it until it broke down, then bought another electric car and drove that second vehicle until it broke down, you would produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions than buying and driving a single gasoline-powered car. And the batteries from both electric cars could also be reused or recycled!
Every time you choose to avoid a single transatlantic flight, you save more carbon than you would by switching to renewable energy in your home for an entire year!
Every time you choose to avoid a single transatlantic flight, you save more carbon than you would by switching to renewable energy in your home for an entire year … so just imagine how much you could help the Earth by choosing to avoid air travel entirely!
Using one less car in your family (or, ideally, living an entirely car-free lifestyle) is one of the most helpful things you can do for the Earth!
I will share my experiences with keeping commitments, the challenges, rewards, beautiful surprises and spiritual insights with my fellow community members and invite them into conversation and making a commitment to sustainable living, too.
Do you want to make a sustainable transportation commitment that is not listed above? We would be happy to evaluate its impact on climate change and consider adding it as a permanent option here. Please email us today!
info@livingthechange.net
Meat, cheese, and milk production all create lots of carbon pollution. What we do with “everything we don’t eat” can also hurt the environment … or it can help! We invite you to eat a plant-based diet and compost your non-meat food scraps.
Internationally, food waste produces more greenhouse gas emissions than any single country except for China or the United States. In fact, food waste produces more greenhouse gas emissions than Brazil, Germany, Indonesia, Mexico, and Canada combined!
If you and your family decided to skip meat two days per week for an entire year, you would save as much carbon pollution as taking your car off the road for ten weeks!
Most dairy comes from animals known as ruminants — including cows, sheep, and goats — which produce lots of methane gas during their digestion processes. Compared with carbon dioxide, this methane gas is 25 times more effective at trapping heat in our atmosphere!
Composting your leftover fruits, vegetables, grains, and non-animal proteins is the best way to use your “food scraps”. Rather than trapping these items in a landfill where they will decompose and build up dangerous greenhouse gases, try composting them to create a rich fertilizer you can use in your garden!
Meat production requires 11 times more fossil fuels per calorie than grain production. And this doesn’t even take into account the negative impacts of animal waste, refrigeration, storage, transportation, and even greater environmental concerns!
In the United States, the greenhouse gas emissions from beef production alone are roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of 24 million cars or 33 coal-fired power plants. Lamb — which is categorized alongside beef as “red meat” — is almost as bad for the Earth!
Raising animals for meat accounts for about 10-15% of all the greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans around the world. The percentages are even higher in certain countries that produce and consume a lot of meat, including New Zealand, Australia, Argentina, and the United States.
Eating a plant-based diet saves more carbon pollution than replacing a traditional gas-powered car with a hybrid car. That’s a whole lot of energy and waste!
Eating a 100% plant-based diet — meaning no milk, cheese, eggs, or other animal food products — saves twice as much carbon pollution as eating a vegetarian diet that makes exception for those foods.
I will share my experiences with keeping commitments, the challenges, rewards, beautiful surprises and spiritual insights with my fellow community members and invite them into conversation and making a commitment to sustainable living, too.
Do you want to make a sustainable food commitment that is not listed above? We would be happy to evaluate its impact on climate change and consider adding it as a permanent option here. Please email us today!
info@livingthechange.net
How do we heat and cool our homes? When do we use electrical appliances? Where does our electricity come from? We invite you consider these questions and lower your home’s impact on climate change.
Using LEDs instead of conventional light bulbs is a helpful step to reducing carbon pollution. The technology is improving each year, making LEDs more efficient and longer-lasting!
Air-drying your clothes can save about as much carbon pollution as recycling your glass, plastic, and paper goods. If you care about recycling, consider no longer using a dryer machine.
Did you know that heating and cooling account for more than half of the energy use in a typical U.S. home? And the numbers are not much better in other developed countries. By keeping your home temperature just a few degrees warmer during summer, you can significantly reduce your carbon footprint.
Did you know that heating and cooling account for more than half of the energy use in a typical U.S. home? And the numbers are not much better in other developed countries. By keeping your home temperature just a few degrees cooler during winter, you can significantly reduce your carbon footprint.
All air-conditioners cause carbon pollution, which represents a serious threat to our planet at scale. Unfortunately, air-conditions can also release hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) — chemical compounds that trap thousands of times as much heat in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide — if they are broken or when they are thrown away. Try minimizing your air-conditioning use in order to conserve electricity, produce less pollution, and require less repair and replacement for your machine.
By using renewable energy to power your home, you can save as much carbon pollution replacing your gas-powered car with an electric car and also replacing all your home’s light bulbs with LEDs!
Using solar energy to power your home is one of the most helpful things you can do for the planet. Depending on how much of your previous energy use came from coal, natural gas, or other unsustainable sources, you could reduce your home’s greenhouse gas emissions by a factor of at least 5 ... and possibly as high as 200!