Our Personal Piece of Preventing the Worst of Climate Change

February - In the US, individuals directly control roughly half of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the rest is under the control of industry, agriculture, and governments. The Paris Accords of 2015 adopted a goal of a rise in temperature of at most 1.5C (2.7 Fahrenheit), because we've all seen what a rise of merely 1.12C (2F) has already caused in terms of wildfires, floods, tornadoes, droughts, and desperate migrant waves seeking a livable life. These disasters are guaranteed to get worse as the temperature rises.

To stay under a 1.5C increase in temperature requires us to cut our US current GHG emissions from 16 tons CO2 per person per year, to only one single ton per person per year. Yikes !!!! How can each of us possibly do this?

ACTION: The three most important, impactful, steps you can take are:

1. Avoid roughly 4.2 tons of CO2 emissions annuallyper household by signing up with your electric company for fossil-free electricity, or call your city or town to inquire how to do that, or install solar panels on your roof to supply your electricity.
2. Avoid roughly6 to 10 tons CO2 annually per household by installing electric heat pumps to supply your heat and hot water.
3. Make your next car electric, avoiding 4.6 tons CO2 annuallyper car, driving 11,500 miles.

These three actions eliminate MORE THAN HALF of your CO2 emissions. There are federal and state subsidies to help you get heat pumps, solar panels, and electric cars. But you need to do more to stay inside your Personal Carbon Budget. Drastically cut back on the "stuff" you buy, cut way back on flying (0.6 tons CO2 is emitted per person to fly across the country and back), and avoid meat and dairy (0.8 tons CO2 avoided per year).

NOTE:  Here's how the lifetime per person budget was arrived at: The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated the earth's Global Carbon Budget (the CO2 tonnage that would result in a rise of 1.5C), to be 380 billion tons of CO2. Taking half of that (the half controlled by individuals) and then dividing by the current 8 billion humans means that a person's remaining lifetime CO2 budget is a mere 24 tons, on average, less for older people, more for younger, so an average of under one ton per year. 

Please send this email on to family and friends and/or write a letter-to-the-editor on this important issue. It is a good way to educate others and build support for needed policies.