Avoid processed foods: If you needed any more reasons to resist pre-packaged foods: It takes 10 calories of fossil fuel to produce 1 calorie of processed food. Similarly, producing frozen food requires about 10 times more energy than making fresh food does.
Buy locally produced products: The average food item travels 1,200 miles to get to your plate. While recent studies say purchasing locally is hardly a silver bullet—it’s four times more carbon efficient to purchase locally.
Cut back on or even greatly reduce the meat: It may be hard to believe, but livestock produces more green-house gases than the world’s entire transportation industry does. If every American gave up meat just one day a week, it would be the equivalent of taking eight million cars off the road. Eliminating your meat consumption completely is comparable to trading in an SUV for a hybrid.
Shop smarter: Americans could stand to adopt the quality-not-quantity approach to shopping. The fact is, if everyone in the world consumed like an American, we would need five Earths to sustain us.
Fix leaks in your heating and air conditioning: Patching leaks in your heating and cooling systems — in the ductwork, windows, and insulation — is the most effective way to reduce your home’s carbon footprint. If that’s too much work, there some easy ways to reduce energy consumption: simply install carbon-fluorescent or LED light bulbs (they use 60 percent less electricity); or buy smart power strips and switch them off when you aren’t using your appliances can save you up to $20 per month on your electric bill, and a huge chunk of CO2.
Carpool: There are approximately 160 million workers in the US, and the average car emits one pound of CO2 per mile. So if every worker drove even 10 fewer miles per week, they would reduce CO2 emissions by a whopping 80 billion plus pounds per year.
Move to town: The average American citizen is about twice as green in a high-density area. For example, each San Francisco resident produces about 11.2 tons of CO2 per year, compared with the 24.5 tons American average. Cities with better public transportation are even more efficient: New Yorkers are down to 7.1 tons per person.
Tags: Avoid processed foods, Buy locally produced products, carbon-fluorescent, green-house gases, LED light bulbs, Patching leaks