This post presents a finite, digestible set of six disciplines that are important to reduce the emissions we cause. Each of these disciplines will take up more than a single blog to unpack, so I’ll just provide an overview here to help you structure the big picture.

I am not implying that these are the only actions required, but these six disciplines form the core of personal climate action - actions in our control that cut the emissions we cause from our personal actions.

These six disciplines are not a complete solution - just a place to start on actions completely in our control, today. We also need legal, policy and systemic change. But without these six disciplines, we shirk the actions directly in our control. And the legal, policy and system changes will also require that we change these personal behaviors. So why wait for a law to reward us or command us to make changes we already know lower emissions?

All of these personal actions are available to us today, under the current laws, regulations and systems. We’ve understood the science behind climate change for over 40 years, I struggle to understand the argument against these disciplines which are in our control.

Assumption

I am making a few assumptions about the people reading @co2mmit. You live in a developed economy like the United States. You have over $20,000 of disposable income each year. This income puts you in the top 10% of the richest people across the Earth. And it puts you in the group that causes roughly half of the global greenhouse gas emissions. So your actions truly matter. Your leadership and example are needed now; it’s not time to wait another decade for a better law to pass.

Each of these six disciplines require some investment of your time. Some require an investment of your money, but others save you money. And all of them require you to act intentionally so you live according to your values.

Discipline 1: Diet–Eat No Beef and Less Meat

This isn’t about total sacrifice; it’s about smart substitution and powerful change. The impact of not eating beef is dramatic. When you stop eating beef - even if you simply substitute fish, chicken and pork in for the beef - you can cut over a half a ton of CO2e from your annual greenhouse gas emissions. And a transition to a lower meat diet can be a gradual change as you discover more vegetarian sources of protein you enjoy from sources like nuts, beans and lentils.

And this change in behavior, eating no beef and less meat, does not require more money. Eating a vegetarian diet costs less than eating a traditional meat-centric diet in the US.

Discipline 2: Drive an EV or Don’t Drive

The car we drive matters. If you own a car, driving an electric vehicle (EV) is a meaningful step to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. EVs are affordable, practical, and cleaner than traditional internal combustion engines (ICE) vehicles.

In 2026, there are now affordable EVs on the market both as new cars and in the used car market. And charging an EV is less expensive than filling a gas tank. This is true at fast-charging stations when I travel longer distances, and especially true when I charge at home with residential rates for electricity which accounts for most of my electric use for the EV.

It’s also extremely convenient to charge an EV at home. It’s easy to get used to not needing to stop at gas stations around town.

Many people are finding ways to simply not get in their car as much. Walk, bike or take public transit instead. Intentionally live where this is possible. A variation to extend the area you can cover with urban and suburban biking is to get an electric bike for trips near your house.

Hybrid cars that get over 40 mpg are a solid second tier choice.

The “Transportation” sector is the largest portion of greenhouse gas emission in the United States. So changing our personal choices around driving – what we drive and when we drive – is a required element of meaningful emissions reductions. And we can personally make these changes today - without waiting for a new law or a new mandate.

Discipline 3: Fly Less

Air travel provides incredible access and convenience. And for many, air travel is deeply tied to a sense of freedom. But true freedom also includes the agency to align our actions with our values. For those of us concerned about the climate, flying less is one of the most powerful, immediate choices we can make.

Avoiding air travel for leisure frequently comes down to finding alternative destinations which you look forward to visiting.

Changing where I daydream about traveling to is a critical step for me in reducing my greenhouse gas emissions from air travel. If I simply focus on the loss, behavior change is difficult. Creating a new destination to look forward to is key. Spend time researching places you can take a fun, enjoyable vacation within driving distance of your home. Maybe use the money you save on air travel as a boost to your budget at the regional destination - or maybe just save the money. This is even more practical if you travel with a family, or if you are coordinating a family get-together. Skip the cruise that departs from Florida, and explore the regional destination your family can drive to.

Using a web-based tool, it’s easy to estimate the emissions from our air travel (or the avoided emissions from a trip not taken). I recommend the CO2 Flight Calculator by MyClimate.

Discipline 4: Heat and Cool Your House Efficiently

To heat and cool your house efficiently, a few steps are required.

First, assure your heat envelope is sufficient. If you have gaps in your thermal insulation or gaps in air sealing, you may be losing the warm and cold air you value in your home. Here is a discussion about how to evaluate your heat envelope and some lessons I learned while evaluating my home.

How we heat our homes is a significant wedge in our greenhouse gas emissions. Installing a heat pump is a meaningful step to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while also reducing monthly energy bills.

Stop using electric resistance heaters. Resistance heat is extremely inefficient. My wife and I found out that raising our thermostat a degree was more efficient than putting the Vornado space heater in the room that always felt cold.

Avoid burning fossil fuels to create heat. If you do need to burn fossil fuels, choose natural gas over propane; and choose either of those over oil.

The option I choose is a dual fuel heat pump with natural gas as a backup heat source for colder nights. Your choice may be different based on budgets, regions of the country, climate and home construction.

This is one of the few places where the solution can cost more than the alternatives. After installing my dual fuel heat pump system, my energy bills dropped significantly, but only just enough to cover the increased capital required to install the system over a 15- to 20-year expected life cycle for the heat pump. For me, the additional cost is a real factor but it is not the anchoring criteria for right actions or for following my faith and convictions.

Discipline 5: Optimize Your Other Home Energy Use

There are other large draws of electricity in your home.

Drier: Minimize the heat setting, the duration and the frequency loads in your drier. When a dryer is using warm air to dry clothes, they are typically either using resistance electric heat or burning natural gas to create this heat. Try drying on lower temperatures and line-drying especially for the final portion of the dry cycle.

Hot water heater: Heating water accounts for about 18% of the energy use in an average American home. Explore replacing your current hot water heater with a heat pump hot water heater before you need a replacement. And look for ways to reduce hot water use through actions like washing clothes in cold water or taking shorter showers.

Cooking: If you cook at home, your stove and oven are significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions (directly or indirectly). For the stovetop, induction stove tops cause the lowest emissions, followed by coil stoves and then burning natural gas. Installing an induction stovetop is a meaningful action to cut emissions. And so is minimizing the amount of time your burners are on – simply tending your pots while cooking can help you reduce the heat sooner.

Lighting: I’d put this in three categories. First, transition all of your lighting to LED bulbs. That’s rather simple and saves money. Second, minimize which lights are on. Turning off lights when they aren’t needed is a real savings for emissions and for your energy bill. Finally, avoiding or minimizing the social use of lighting for decorations and enhancing the look of your property. This includes minimizing outdoor flood lights and seasonal displays. Cutting outdoor lighting is also good for birds and other wildlife.

Discipline 6: Generate Your Own Solar Electricity

I prefer to see the entire grid transition to electric generation that has lower greenhouse gas emissions (solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear.) Utility scale solar systems cost less per kWh then residential systems. But after understanding the science of climate change for over 40 years, there are governments and utility commissions across the United States that have not transitioned the to cleaner energy generation. For a general overview of how clean your electricity is, here is an Energy Information Agency graphic showing the emissions per unit of electricity generated by state:

It is important to understand that the grid is not neatly divided by state lines, so this graphic may not accurately represent the emissions caused by the generation of the electricity you use.

If your electricity is already below 250 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour (MWh), there is less benefit from putting solar on your home. However, if the electricity is higher, especially if it is significantly higher, there is a significant benefit from generating your own electricity from a residential solar system.

A solar array combined with a battery also makes your home significantly more resilient. In September of 2024, hurricane Helene knocked out power for my hometown of Asheville, North Carolina. For four days our neighborhood did not have power. My home is equipped with solar panels and a battery, and we had electricity for our basic critical loads: our freezer and refrigerator, a toaster oven, a heating plate for boiling water and some cooking, some of our lights and some outlets. Our front porch plugs were a hub for neighbors to charge their electronics any time of day or night. This added resilience is another benefit beyond the lower monthly energy bills and the significant reduction in our emissions.

Other Actions That Matter

These six disciplines form a cornerstone for climate action. I am not suggesting that these six disciplines are the ultimate solution for climate change. Our global response is complex and involves personal choice, industrial production choices, government choices (the military is the largest institutional energy user in the United States), legal frameworks, and local policy decisions. And all of the legal and policy choices will try to influence the behavior changes outlined in the above six disciplines across the entire country. But we can choose to change, of our own free will, today.

Beyond accepting responsibility for your personal greenhouse gas emissions, here are a few other focused actions that really do make a difference.

Vote in every election. Voting is a basic right and responsibility in a democracy. It is important that we elect leaders who will act to address climate change. Furthermore voting is important because politicians specifically listen (and poll) people who vote - if you don’t vote, politicians attempt to screen out your views from their polling on the views of “likely voters”.

Talk about your actions with anyone who will engage. Raise the subject with people you connect with. Let the other person speak, and be curious about their views. And, let them understand the issue is important to you. Simply talking to people you know leads to a greater acceptance of climate science.

Invest sustainably. If you have assets you are investing, make sure you are not supporting the behaviors, products and services you are trying to avoid. Want a place to start? Pick up a copy of Your Essential Guide to Sustainable Investing (Larry Swedroe & Samuel Adams, 2022) or The Sustainable Investor (Peter Krull, 2025).

So, take a deep breath and don’t feel overwhelmed the next time that reducing your own carbon footprint seams to complex or to abstract of an idea to act on. Focus on these six disciplines. Pick one to start. You don’t have to make all of the changes today. Just keep working so your choices are aligned with your values and your concerns about climate change.

Jim

As a kid, when we had beef roast for a big meal, the leftover meat would go in our refrigerator. I wasn’t supposed to eat it for a snack. My dad, however, would cut off a few slices and share them with me and we’d eat the slices cold. As an adult, I enjoyed the taste of cold beef as much as a steak right off the grill. And just imagining the taste connects me with comforting memories of my dad who passed away almost 30 years ago.

I had the good fortune to live in Freiburg, Germany for a year when I was 5 years old. My family would frequently get a loaf of fresh bread and a block of cheese and hike up into the hills around Freiburg for a picnic lunch centered around cheese. I continued this habit into my adult life, buying multiple blocks of cheese each week, and often structuring lunch around cheese and bread.

My step mom had a favorite brand of butter pecan ice cream that was sold at a small store 4 miles from our house. After I got my drivers license, I could always use the car if I was willing to drive to that market and buy a quart of butter pecan ice cream, provided I got it home while it was still hard.

And hamburgers were a staple. On the grill. With lots of ketchup.

I never imagined I would stop eating beef, milk and cheese; but I have.

Eating no beef and less meat does significantly reduces the greenhouse gas emissions I cause by my diet. Cows (beef) and sheep (lamb) are ruminants, a class of animals that digests food differently than we do. When a ruminant swallows, the food initially goes into an organ called a rumen where bacteria start to break down the roughage and in the process release methane (CH4) that the cows (or sheep) burp back into the air. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is over 80 times more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame. While eating less meat and more vegetable protein is an important step in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, simply eating other sources of meat instead of beef also causes significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. So, if immediately going to a complete vegetarian diet doesn’t sound practical, try a simpler step initially: avoiding all beef in your diet. Previously, I explored the emissions reductions from eliminating beef and from shifting to a full vegetarian diet.

Do I miss beef and dairy? Not as much as I thought I would. And only when I let my mind fixate on them - like while writing this post. I also previously provided some insights on how to change a habit in order to change what I eat. But let’s get a bit more granular on changes I’ve made.

Beef

Hamburgers are probably the most ubiquitous signature product that were a staple throughout my life. But there are so many good alternatives. A couple decades ago Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich had displaced a hamburger as my favorite fast-food sandwich, and a chicken sandwich is a lower emission meat sandwich.

For lunch now, I prefer alternatives to meat on my sandwiches. My standard lunch sandwich starts with spicy hummus (like Ithaca Jalapeno Lime Hummus, or 365 brand Jalapeno Hummus, or Sabra Supremely Spicy Hummus). Grate a carrot over the hummus and add some Cholula hot sauce in the carrot (I like the chili-lime variety). Add other stuff as available like sliced tomatoes, avocado, maybe some Wickles Wicked Pickle Chips. Another standard sandwich is a variation of a peanut butter sandwich where I add chipotle peppers or hot sauce and a thick slice of apple - or I grill the peanut butter sandwich with hot sauce in with the peanut butter and just a bit of added salt added on the grill.

Milk

I never thought I would shift away from milk on my cereal and in my coffee. But I’ve found alternatives that I find just as satisfying. I use low-sugar almond milk in my coffee and on my cereal. I was surprised at how easy this transition was. For me, unsweetened almond milk has a good consistency and taste - and the consistency is really important. I have found that I really don’t like oat milk, and I’m not that fond of soy milk. But nut milks are satisfying and an easy switch. If you try some of the milk alternatives, be willing to experiment a bit to find the product that fits your taste and palate. Don’t get discouraged if your first quart of oat milk seems thin and not appealing - just go on to the next alternative. Here’s an overview of the environmental impacts of different types of milk products.

Ice Cream

Better than the nut milks, So Delicious frozen cashew and almond milks are a satisfying treat that has replaced cow’s milk based ice cream in my house. I occasionally experiment with other brands, but keep returning to So Delicious as a standard. Though I might not be as deeply committed to this brand as my step mom was to her specific brand of butter pecan ice cream.

Cheese

I used to buy a few sticks of cheese each week. Another product I simply could not have imagined completely removing from my diet.

I typically don’t like “substitute” end-products for cheese. Instead of vegetarian alternatives that try to mimic cheese, I prefer alternate products: Like getting some hummus on crackers or a real sauce in place of melted cheese.

We’ve even have found a tasty vegetarian pizza without cheese from a local shop.

Butter

Butter was really rather easy to give up in our home. Sunflower oil and olive oil are good to cook with, and even to grill up a piece of bread if I want something like buttered toast. And there are substitutes for baking.

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Not looking for perfection

I will occasionally eat some products from cows - occasional feta on a dish, cheese on a pizza, or some half-and-half in a cup of coffee when there’s no nut milk option available. I probably still eat some butter when I order an almond croissant at a coffee shop. I’m less about trying to be 100% pure and more about focusing on getting my emissions low across many actions while still enjoying life.

I give restaurants some latitude on using butter or some cheese in a menu item - I won’t pass up a good slice of bread or a cookie just because it might have some milk or butter baked into it.

But I’ll intentionally return to a restaurant that serves me food without products that come from cows.

Are there any foods you’ve dropped that you were surprised at how easy the change was once you started? Any foods you’ve just been unable to drop?

Good eating.

Jim

Linking these positive emotions to your actions that cut greenhouse gas emissions is critical to support your habitual repetition of these actions.

Experiencing a positive emotional reward when you act in a way that cuts your emissions is critical for supporting the repetition of those actions. Our habits are structured around these rewards we feel while or immediately after our actions. James Clear in his 2018 NYT best seller Atomic Habits builds his book on a description of the four pieces that create a habit:

When we talked about changing our diet, I focused on changing or controlling the cue in this sequence. Today, I will focus on the reward we feel. When the reward is immediately linked to the action, the positive reward reinforces the likelihood that we will repeat a behavior. With no reward, any action is unlikely to be repeated or turned into a habit. This concept is so critical that James Clear formalizes the reward as his Fourth Law, “Make It Satisfying”.

Here are some examples of how to implement this simple act of personal appreciation as a part of our everyday behavior:

• When you eat a vegetarian meal at a restaurant, take a minute and feel that warm glow knowing that this habit reduces your emissions, helps support restaurants that offer vegetarian options, and communicates to the people you eat with that lowering emissions is important (even if no words are said). Feel that warm glow.

• When you plan your next vacation destination for a regional destination you will drive to, take a minute and reflect that not only are you going to enjoy the regional destination with all it has to offer, but you are significantly reducing emissions by not getting on a plane for your trip – an action that lives out your values. Feel that warm glow.

• When you charge your electric vehicle, or even fill up your high-mileage hybrid, take a moment to reflect that by driving your lower-emission vehicle you are making a dent in our largest category of emissions, transportation. Feel that warm glow.

• When you sign that contract for a green home improvement like buying a new heat pump furnace or heat pump water heater, installing needed insulation, or adding solar panels to your home, stop and take a moment to feel good knowing that your actions, while costing you capital you could have spent in other ways, will cut emissions for years to come. A personal green investment that lowers emissions every year even if you move out of the home. Yup, feel that warm glow.

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James Clear describes the issue this way (Atomic Habits chapter 15):

This is particularly true for plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions–where you are making plans related to our collective futures. James Clear continues…

And what better reinforcement for our actions to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions than a moment where we look back on the action and internalize that we are living according to our values. In that moment, experience a warm glow.

You can also help others experience that warm glow.

When you see another person taking a positive step to cut emissions, no matter how large or small, you can reach out to them and compliment them. Help them attach that warm glow from your recognition to their actions. When people’s actions are seen and noticed, it increases the cohesive social norm that these green choices are a positive step in our lives. Don’t make this a social media post about their actions, really reach out with a phone call, lunch, or simple word of encouragement when you see them. Help your network experience the same warm glow in response to their green actions.

Jim

RECOMMENDED READ: Pick up a copy of James Clear’s Atomic Habits, and read the book as a manual on how to adopt behaviors to cut your greenhouse gas emissions. Put James Clear’s solid suggestions and strategies to work changing your behaviors in ways that cut your emissions.

Current carbon dioxide removal technologies address the following shortcomings discussed in the post on carbon offsets:

• Permanence: Carbon can be stored for thousands of years in deep rock formations, in the deep oceans, and in forms of carbon that do not readily return to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (for example biochar in soils or carbonate rock minerals.) As a note on terminology, “leakage” from a carbon dioxide removal project can refer to a problem with “permanence.” As an example, if carbon dioxide is stored in a deep geologic formations and some of the carbon dioxide “leaks” out of the reservoir and back into the atmosphere, this problem is related to the “permanence” of storage (often referred to as durability and duration of storage in carbon dioxide removal literature.) This is different from “leakage” discussed below and in the previous post.

• Avoidance of Double Counting: Whoever pays for the carbon dioxide removal can take credit for the removal. This problem can be addressed with regulated or externally certified markets so that each payment for removal is actually fulfilled and the removal credit is not sold to two entities.

• Additionality: For carbon dioxide removal, each ton of carbon dioxide removed would not have been removed if the service was not paid for - so the service is “additional”. This takes regulation or certification, oversight and management to assure that the methods truly account for new removal of carbon atoms from the atmosphere, and that all emissions caused by removing the carbon dioxide are also removed at time the carbon dioxide is removed.

• Leakage: For carbon offsets, leakage can occur if carbon dioxide emissions are simply shifted from one location to another location outside the boundaries of the project. An example of leakage we explored was a carbon offset sold for not removing the trees from a specific area of forest. If the offset simply shifted the logging operation to the next square mile of forest without reducing the demand for timber, the project has “leakage” and does not actually reduce total emissions. This problem is not an issue with most carbon dioxide removal projects unless the carbon dioxide removal is used as a way to justify further emissions from other sources such as emissions from air travel or emissions from my diet.

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Well designed carbon dioxide removal projects can address all these concerns.

There are numerous methods of carbon dioxide removal currently being explored and developed for carbon dioxide removal often lumped by technology (e.g. enhanced mineralization) or by where the carbon atoms are sequestered (ocean, land, subsurface.) Here is a graphic from NOAA with a few of the negative emission technologies currently being explored:

(Image Credit: Sarah Battle, NOAA)

Each technology is intriguing and has complexities worth discussion. And each of these technologies could individually fill a blog post. It is possible to remove carbon dioxide from the geochemical systems in a way that the carbon no longer cycles into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (or methane) – there are methods which address permanence, avoidance of double counting, leakage and additionality. If you are interested in learning more about the technologies, you can start with these links:

• IPCC Sixth Assessment Report WGIII CDR Factsheet

• NOAA Fact Sheet on Carbon Dioxide Removal

• USDOE 2025 report: Carbon Dioxide Removal: Purpose, Approaches, and Recommendations

The question I bumped into while writing this post is not “Can carbon dioxide removal be accomplished?” Instead, I was challenged with the question “Should individuals pay for carbon dioxide removal as a method to offset the emissions that we cause?” I started writing this post with the commitment that the answer was “Yes, we can pay for carbon dioxide removal to counter emissions we choose to cause.” I planned to provide links for people to use to purchase carbon dioxide removal. Believing that the answer was “yes” for some time before writing this post, in 2022 I bought carbon dioxide removal from ClimeWorks to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mineralize the carbon dioxide in basalts where it will remain out of the atmosphere probably for millions of years.

But my reading on carbon dioxide removal has changed my opinion. I still hold that carbon dioxide removal or negative emissions technologies will be required as part of our collective response to climate change globally, but I now hold that individuals should focus on the deep cuts in emissions and not on attempting to justify the emissions from their air travel overseas by purchasing carbon dioxide removal as a service. Deep cuts in emissions are required, and that involves the personal behavior change I am writing about in co2mmit. Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is expected to be needed for a global response, but individuals should focus on changing behaviors that lead to the deep cuts in our emissions. Individuals can be a part of this process, paying for carbon dioxide removal as a service. But this purchase does not eliminate our offset the emissions we cause.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) states that “CDR cannot substitute for immediate and deep emissions reductions, but it is part of all modelled scenarios that limit global warming to 2°or lower by 2100.” “CDR {carbon dioxide removal} is not a substitute for deep emissions reductions, but it is an important tool that should be deployed in tandem with other mitigation methods.” “Particularly, CDR is needed to counterbalance emissions from difficult-to-decarbonise sectors, such as industry, long distance transportation, and agriculture.”

A 2019 academic paper which impacted my views made a case to separate emissions reductions from carbon dioxide removal. (McLaren et al. 2019 doi: 10.3389/fclim.2019.00004) The authors open their paper by stating that

The authors continue stating that they “see clear evidence that emissions reductions can be deterred or delayed by efforts and suggestions to use NETs {negative emission technologies} to sustain fossil fuel use… substituting negative emissions for emissions reduction could be harmful in itself. Making promises of future negative emissions, instead of reducing emissions now, is even more risky.” “Carbon trading is easily distorted by powerful economic interests, and typically permits luxury emissions while constraining the demands of the poorest.”

So I will focus back on exploring ways to cut our personal emissions.

I support the solid work being done by many companies that are exploring ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And I accept modeling from the IPCC that these technologies will be required as we appear to be over shooting our emissions targets. But these technologies will be needed to accommodate the most recalcitrant emissions from actions like making steel and growing our food. These technologies will not substitute for the deep cuts to emissions which are directly related to our individual behaviors. And these technologies should not be used as a substitute for changes in our diet, reductions in our air travel, the choice of our vehicle or our driving habits.

If individuals want to pay for carbon dioxide removal, that can be viewed much like a charitable donation–a payment for something we value. But payment for carbon dioxide removal should not be viewed as a personal mechanism to justify higher emissions.

This is both a complex moral problem and also a pragmatic climate mitigation problem. I have come down on the side which focuses on the immediacy of our need for deep cuts to our emissions. As I’ve discussed before, we can not continue waiting to cut our own carbon emissions.

Jim

It is nearly impossible to live within a developed economy and not produce any greenhouse gas emissions. Changing our diet can cut a ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions per year by eating no beef and less meat (or simply no meat, dairy, eggs). Yet even a low-emissions diet causes over a ton of CO2e per person per year. And sometimes it is difficult to completely avoid air travel if your family lives in another part of the country or world. Another additional ton of emissions.

One option to balance out these emissions is to buy a carbon offset which represents the reduction, avoidance, or removal of greenhouse gas emissions and match these offsets with the extra emissions we are causing. The carbon offsets we can purchase are often linked to projects in specific places that reduce emissions and sold to compensate for emissions in a different place. Carbon offsets are frequently bought either by

• corporations or companies that have made a commitment to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions or market their net zero emissions to their consumers, or

• governments that have passed laws or agreed to reduce their emissions but can not meet the requirements from actual emissions reductions within their boundaries.

But people also buy these offset credits. And some companies specifically offer these offsets as a way to help consumers that are concerned about climate change rationalize using their products. One example is the Enbridge Gas GreenTherm program to offset emissions from burning natural gas in our home or business.

Costs for these products can range from $20 per ton CO2e to over $1,000 per ton of CO2e avoided or removed. On the higher end of this price range, an individual can pay $400 to over $1,000 per ton CO2e for actual isolation of carbon atoms where they will be sequestered for thousands of years, leading to a removal of CO2 in the atmosphere. Capturing carbon atoms and keeping them from cycling back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide is frequently referred to as carbon dioxide removal or CDR.

On the lower end of the price range, an individual might pay $20 to a few hundred dollars per ton CO2e for a carbon offset, where the buyer pays for the reduction, avoidance or removal of a unit of greenhouse gas emissions by different entities to counterbalance a unit of emissions by the person or organization that purchased the credit. Carbon offsets are commonly subject to rules and environmental integrity criteria which I’ll discuss below. When examined closely, many offsets appear to fail to meet some of these criteria.

As an example, an individual might pay to offset the emissions from burning natural gas to heat their home and water. Enbridge supplies my natural gas and offers offsets for purchase through a program they branded GreenTherms. Enbridge states that “a typical residential customer can offset their entire natural gas carbon footprint each month by purchasing four $3 blocks a month, or $12 total a month, achieving net zero carbon emissions from their monthly natural gas usage.” The actual accounting for this program is not disclosed on any page I can find at Enbridge, but when the program was introduced by a previous owner of my gas distribution, the price appears to have been equivalent to $3 per 12.5 therms of natural gas which is equivalent to $45 per ton of CO2e. But the typical purchaser would not know they were paying $45 per ton of CO2e offset. In North Carolina GreenTherms currently support four different landfill gas capture and combustion projects, including the landfill that my trash goes to, the Buncombe County Landfill.

Problems with carbon offsets have been identified and extensively discussed. A solid overview of the problem of carbon offsets was published in the 2025 “Annual Review of Environment and Resources: Are Carbon Offsets Fixable?” by Joseph Romm, Stephen Lezak and Amna Alshamsi (DOI 10.1146/annurev-environ-112823-064813).

Some corporations are being forced to admit that many of these offset credits are not reliable. A few years ago, Delta Airlines claimed that their flights were carbon neutral by relying on offset credits, then Delta reversed this decision after Delta was sued. The lawsuit against Delta claimed that the benefits from the offsets were likely temporary and would have happened even without the firm’s investment (AP), issues of permanence and additionality discussed below.

Offsets are commonly subject to rules and environmental integrity criteria intended to ensure that the offsets achieve their stated mitigation outcome. In this post, I’ll explore four of these criteria and explore how they are frequently not met:

• Avoidance of double counting

• Additionality

• Leakage

• Permanence

Next week I’ll examine carbon dioxide removal (CDR) which is typically 10 times more expensive than a traditional carbon offset but passes more of these criteria.

Avoidance of Double Counting

If an organization makes an effort to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and sells the carbon offset, the carbon offset only has value if no one else is taking credit for the specific reduction in emissions.

Let’s examine the offset of capturing and destroying the methane produced at my local Buncombe County landfill I mentioned above which is used as an offset for burning natural gas in my home. In a landfill, waste organic material is covered and naturally breaks down in the absence of air releasing methane and other gases. For this carbon offset, the methane (natural gas) is captured and destroyed (burned), and in the process of burning the methane, electricity is generated which is put on the grid. The county I live in chose to sell the credit for the capture and destruction of methane that the landfill creates. The people who enroll in the GreenTherm program through Enbridge write a check to believe they are the ones capturing and destroying the methane gas - a way to justify their own emission of carbon dioxide from burning the natural gas that Enbridge delivers to their homes or businesses.

However, the county where I live also takes credit for this. The solid waste manager for my county told a local reporter that the county “voluntarily invests in landfill gas collection and control through its landfill gas-to-energy facility.” But this is not really the case. Once the county sold the carbon offset, they could only say that some unnamed investors came in and paid the county to destroy this methane. But the cost of the offsets does not cover the full cost of the project, so even this statement would be false.

Let’s examine the full consequences of this double counting regarding who reduced these emissions. In my county, residents (and businesses) can dispose of their trash in a local landfill that creates methane gas as the trash degrades, and residents can also burn natural gas to heat their homes and water. Since their landfill captures the methane and destroys it, they can be proud that the emissions they cause by putting waste in their landfill are significantly reduced; and at the same time they can buy a carbon offset from the landfill to offset their emissions from burning natural gas in their home so - at that point these homeowners (or businesses) hold that their home emissions are zeroed out. And yet they are actually still emitting carbon dioxide from burning the natural gas to heat their home and water. The people who bought the offsets have simply helped fund a project that cuts the emissions from the landfill where they place their trash - where they would also be responsible for the emissions anyway.

This double counting is also rather easy to spot when examining carbon offsets that are used to generate low emission electricity. Renewable energy credits (RECs) are a special type of credits that are similar to a carbon offset. The purchaser of a renewable energy credit buys the environmental and social attributes of one megawatt-hour of electricity generated from a renewable source of electricity like wind or solar power. And, again, my local electric utility offers a program to offset the emissions from my electric bill using renewable energy credits (Duke Energy’s Go Renewable program.)

To understand the issue, imagine calculating the emission from a home that uses electricity in a state with lots of wind power, we’ll use Iowa as an example. The Energy Information Agency informs the person in Iowa how much CO2e is generated for a kWh of electricity they use in Iowa (699 lbs carbon dioxide per MWh), the statistics are based on the electric generation for their portion of the electric grid. While someone else may have bought the “environmental attribute” or emission reduction from their wind energy, a person (or business) in Iowa will still calculate their emissions as if their electricity has a lower emission profile (lower lbs CO2 per MWh or lower tons CO2e per kWh). So both the end user and the person who bought the renewable energy credit (REC) are taking credit for the same low-emission wind energy powering the grid in Iowa.

It is important to understand that the price of these carbon offsets or renewable energy credits do not cover the cost of the emission reduction projects. The cost of the offsets can help cover some of the costs, but the price is not based on the total cost of the project, only the ability to get people to buy the offsets or RECs in an open market where these people gain no advantage other than claiming they have lowered emissions in some way. And all the while other people continue to claim they are emitting less after the offset or renewable energy credit is purchased.

The impact of carbon offsets being double counted go beyond simply reducing the true value of the offsets. These offsets remove the motivation to accomplish the actual emission reductions for those emissions that are offset. They caused the buyer of the offset to believe that they are not emitting greenhouse gases even though they continue to do so. These offsets falsely justify continued emissions from the person who buys them.

Additionality

A carbon offset is only supposed to be created if the reduction in emissions is new (additional) and would not have happened if the credit was not purchased. Often, if there was no payment for the offset, the change in emissions would not have been as significant as the carbon offset assumed. Maybe even the entire project would have proceeded any way and the lack of the offset would not have changed the total emissions at all.

Let’s return to the example of buying a carbon offset for the capture and destruction of methane being emitted from my county landfill. The county I live in (Buncombe County, NC) committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to rely on 100% renewable energy for County operations. If there were no offset credits, a likely baseline scenario is that the County still would have taken action to capture and destroy the methane being emitted from the landfill, they would have simply been required to find a way to make up some additional funding. If the county would have acted to reduce the methane emissions even without the sale of carbon offsets, then payment for the offset does not create an additional reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and the offsets should not be certified nor sold.

Many lower cost carbon offsets are for the preservation of forest land. These offset credits may account for the different land use emissions (or carbon sequestration) between a plot of land continuing to grow a forest or the same plot being logged and maybe converted to farmland. However, if the offset was never sold, another alternative is that the trees would have remained on the property for some period of time, maybe even a long period of time. If this were the case, again, the carbon offset sold does not cause an additional reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and the offset should not be certified nor sold. This issue is common for offsets sold to address deforestation or improved forest management.

Leakage

Leakage occurs when the emissions reduction that is sold as a carbon offset is simply shifted from the project boundary to an area outside the project boundary. When this happens, there is no real reduction in emissions. This is a frequent critique of projects related to reducing deforestation - a category in a United Nations framework referred to as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). If the demand for timber is not changed, and the sale of offset credits simply shifts which sections of a forest are logged, then no real emissions reductions occur even when the offset is sold.

For forestry projects, appropriate losses to leakage are hard to measure but are estimated at 80% or higher.

Permanence

If carbon emissions are avoided for a single year, that is different than if emissions are avoided for a decade or for 100 years. On the extreme end, many carbon dioxide removal projects costing $400 to over $1,000 per ton CO2e removed isolate the carbon from the atmosphere for durations of thousands of years or longer. On the other extreme, many nature based solutions such as forest preservation have both a shorter duration and less control on the permanence. Concerns with the duration of forestry based projects have risen as climate change has worsened issues such as pest control, drought and wildfires which directly threaten the trees.

A 2021 study of organizations planting trees world-wide stated that “there was little to no discussion of monitoring across organizations, so the number of trees that actually survive is likely much lower. Only 18% of the organizations (n = 32) mentioned monitoring at all, and of these, only eight measured survival rates and/or ensured some level of maintenance post-planting.”

Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR)

Next week I’ll explore the longer term benefits of carbon dioxide removal (CDR). There are now opportunities to pay for the long-term removal of carbon from the biosphere and atmosphere - isolating the carbon molecules so the carbon will not return to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. The cost of commercial carbon dioxide removal you can pay for starts around $400 per ton CO2e removed and extends up over $1,000 per ton CO2e removed. Even in this market place, when you buy a ton of carbon dioxide removal there are some issues you should understand before paying for the offset.

Personal Emissions Reductions

Exploring carbon offsets has solidified my decision to focus on reducing the emissions my purchases and lifestyle cause and changing my behavior to reduce my emissions – that is the basis behind co2mmit. As I get to areas that are harder and harder to further reduce my emissions, I may rely on carbon dioxide removal. True carbon dioxide removal credits at $500 to $1,000 per ton of CO2 for my full emissions might be a good way to financially motivate further action.

And, at the same time, I will continue to support organizations that help people that are not able to afford the investments to reduce their utility bills and emissions.

I will also support and work for policy and legal changes to reduce emissions. But I will not wait for a law to tell me to lower my emissions when I can already make the choices required to bring my emissions down today. With no new law and with the existing technology and available products and services, I can lower my emissions significantly through focused, intentional action.

Jim

When people fly less, less jet fuel is burned

I have had friends tell me that if they don’t get on a plane for their air-travel based vacation, the plane will still fly anyway. But we know that when fewer people fly, the airlines adjust quickly so they are not flying empty air planes. Airlines shift flights to maximize their profit (or minimize their loss). Airlines lose money flying nearly empty planes, and they quickly act to avoid losses.

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In 2020, our collective response to COVID provided a good test of the ability of airlines to adjust flights. During the first half of the year, passenger-miles dropped significantly. Here is the data from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) showing monthly passenger miles over the last 10 years:

Notice the sharp drop in early 2020 followed by a recovery starting in 2020 and extending through 2023.

The Energy Information Agency of the US Department of Energy provides data on annual jet fuel consumption in the United States. The drop and gradual recovery in jet fuel use is easy to spot and matches the passenger-miles shift caused by COVID:

It’s rather clear: when people stop buying tickets for air travel, jet fuel use goes down and greenhouse gas emissions drop. As the old saying goes, it’s not rocket science; though it may be basic aviation economics.

Changing behaviors of people who fly is difficult

I am trying to persuade you to fly less. I don’t know if I’ll succeed, but past research suggests that I’ll probably fail. It is extremely difficult to change the behavior of people accustomed to the ease of getting on a plane to travel across a country or across an ocean. Beyond simply asking each of us to act responsibly and reduce our emissions by flying less, policy choices are also unlikely to shift behavior of frequent fliers.

Increasing prices does not seem to modify most flier’s behavior. Low cost airlines suffer when costs (and fares) go up, as reflected by the recent complete collapse of Spirit Airlines as jet fuel prices surged this spring (2026). But in the past the major airlines have not seen the same drop off. Regulatory policies like a carbon tax are not optimal for reducing emissions from air travel. It is estimated that emission taxes as high as $270 per ton of CO2 may only reduce air travel demand by 0.8%. Air travel is referred to as inelastic - a service where increasing costs do not drive large reductions in sales.

In reality, the best solution to reduce emissions from air travel involves policy changes AND personal behavior changes; and there are no policy changes that don’t also require changes in our personal choices.

I do believe that if you are reading @co2mmit, you are motivated to reduce your emissions. And that you are willing to explore the idea that a ton of CO2 emissions avoided by flying less is both significant and meaningful. With that belief, I’ll proceed to more concrete recommendations.

Find locations to vacation close to home.

Avoiding air travel for leisure frequently comes down to finding alternative destinations to look forward to visiting.

My dad grew up in Idaho, and as a kid, every three years, we’d load up a station wagon and travel from Michigan back to Idaho. Once in Idaho we would always, without exception, make our way into the Sawtooth National Forest and simply enjoy being up in the mountains - frequently at Redfish Lake. This was before air travel was as common, so at the end, we’d load back into the station wagon for the drive back to Michigan.

As a parent, I enjoyed getting my kids into the Rocky Mountains and back to the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. We’d fly into Salt Lake City or Boise and drive the rest of the way. And I continued to enjoy this trip after my kids were older.

Now, I am adjusting to the idea that I may never return to the mountains of Idaho.

If I hang on that thought, it is easy to find justifications for one more flight into Boise and an enjoyable drive up into Ketchum.

But I have alternatives. I now live in Asheville, North Carolina, and I can find and explore areas around me that are also beautiful and relaxing. I can even create some traditions of my own. One example of a new tradition: we spend a few days for our anniversary birding and hiking near Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. This is now an annual trip we look forward to—a new tradition. And it is a 100-mile trip we can make in our EV. As a bonus, while driving I can pack the car with more camera gear for birding as opposed to worrying about my camera stuffed in an overhead bin on an airplane.

By simply adjusting where I dream about going, I cut out a 4,000 mile round trip flight for two followed by another 300 mile drive from the airport up to Ketchum and back. This cuts about 1 ton CO2e emissions and saves about $1,500 in airfare and car rental. And the smokey mountains are an amazing place to spend a week.

Within driving distance from our house, we have many nature focused destinations in the Appalachians; we have the Atlantic Coast from North Carolina down to Georgia, we have multiple large cities like Washington DC, Atlanta GA, we have historic cities like Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA (and Atlanta and Washington DC again) and we have numerous bird and game refuges where we can go explore birds.

Changing where I day dream of traveling to is a critical step for me in reducing my greenhouse gas emissions from air travel. If I simply focus on the loss, behavior change is difficult. Creating a new destination to look forward to is key.

My first suggestion: Spend time researching places you can take a fun, enjoyable vacation within driving distance of your home.

Use the money you save to enjoy the regional destination. This can be even more practical if you travel to enjoy time with large families. The more people not getting on a plane, the more savings to plow into your destination (or to keep in your checking account), and the more emissions avoided.

Evaluate each trip on its merits

I do recognize that air travel is also required for business and is part of staying connected to families that may be spread out across many states and continents. This travel may not be avoidable. But you can still ask: Can I do this with a few conference calls? Is this trip absolutely necessary? Does the training require face-to-face interaction? Can I creatively reach the same goals while traveling less? Can I make this trip less often and simply stay longer once I’m there?

Explore alternate ways to get to your destination.

Travel by train. America is not known for our rail system, but across much of the east coast, the connections are good and the service is convenient. Traveling by train provides more room to enjoy yourself or to work. And it is much easier to get up, walk about, and stretch your legs. And travel by train is lower emissions than driving an EV.

Drive instead. Simply driving is not always a drop in emissions when you are traveling alone. But if you get two or more people in your car the emissions drop can be significant. I’ve started to have favorite restaurants between Asheville and our kids and grandchildren in Michigan & Illinois. And with a bit of looking, I found some good birding spots that are right off the best driving routes - so I can turn a 12-hour drive into a three day return trip with good birding as an extended vacation.

Estimate the emissions from your trip.

It is hard to cut a half or a quarter ton from our carbon dioxide emissions. If you get on a airplane annually or more frequently, then exploring ways to fly less is a meaningful action that can cut your emissions.

Web-based tools allow us to easily calculate the emissions from our air travel. I recommend the CO2 Flight Calculator by MyClimate. To use the CO2 Flight Calculator, first determine if you can get a direct flight, or if you will have a layover. Layovers are important, as each leg of a flight adds to emissions, and different spoke locations for the flights can add flying miles to your trip. Next, go to the CO2 Flight Calculator and select either “Direct flight” or “Flight with stopover.” Then enter your airport for departure, your airport for the stopover (if any) and the airport for your destination. Enter the number of passengers, and which class of ticket you hold, and press “Calculate”. The tool will give you a result in tons of CO2e. The metric ton is used in emissions discussions, which is 1,000 kg. The tons of CO2e is the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that would cause the same amount of warming over a 100-year time horizon as the impacts from the flight.

MyClimate will offer to sell you an offset credit for your flight emissions. Personally, I do not support the offset credits offered by MyClimate - more on that next week when my post will discuss paying for offset credits and carbon dioxide removal (CDR).

The MyClimate tool incorporates global warming from the direct emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) when the jet fuel is burned as well as warming potential from other factors like the formation of jet contrails and other chemicals also released in the exhaust like nitrogen oxides (NOx).

There are a number of tools available on-line to perform this calculation from other organizations:

• Transportation Impact Model (TIM) used on Google searches for flights

• International Air Transport Association (IATA), a trade association representing over 360 airlines accounting for roughly 85% of global air traffic

• International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN agency which attempts to help 193 countries cooperate and share their skies to their mutual benefit

The TIM used by Google also accounts for more factors than just the CO2 emissions, while the IATA and ICAO models include less additional factors and significantly underestimate the real impact of a flight.

The global warming impacts are concentrated over the next few years

It is standard practice to review the emission estimates with the unit of “ton of CO2e” for your trip (tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions). To follow standardized reporting procedures, these calculations convert impacts from factors other than the emissions of carbon dioxide into an equivalent warming from a current emission of carbon dioxide looking at the impacts over a 100-year horizon. However, some of the major factors cause warming over a much shorter period of days to years: two major factors are the formation of nitrogen oxides in the upper atmosphere (NOx) and the formation of clouds in the upper atmosphere (contrails) which also retain more heat in the earth system. Since NOx and upper atmosphere clouds have impacts over shorter time periods, when you average these over a 100-year time frame you significantly underestimate their near term impact on global warming - by a factor close to 5 times (see Gaillot, Beauchet, Lorne & Krim, 2023. DOI 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2023.119983). So these values presented as tons CO2e underestimate the impacts over the next year to 20 years.

Evaluating the available calculators

A team of researchers evaluated the existing aviation carbon footprint calculators in 2025 (McFall et al. DOI 10.1038/s43247-025-02847-4). They broadened the scope of emission calculators for air travel and worked to improve accuracy. Their analysis determined that the existing models all under-estimated the emissions from air travel. MyClimate appears most accurate, but even the MyClimate model recommended above underestimates the actual impact from flying. Here is a graphic representation of their comparison of the four air passenger emission footprint calculators mentioned above. This graphic separates the results by travel class for a flight from Singapore Changi Airport (SIN) to Zurich, Switzerland (ZRH). Note that these results are shown in kg of CO2e (1,000 kg of CO2e = 1 ton CO2e).

The MyClimate tool offers a meaningful estimate of emissions. But even the MyClimate model underestimates the actual impact of the emissions on global warming.

Avoid cruise ships

As a side note, it may be unexpected, but going on a cruise ship is not a good strategy to reduce emissions.

Cruise ships cause significant greenhouse gas emissions as well as other air pollution from burning heavy fuels. A typical passenger on a cruise ship may cause 0.3 to 0.5 tons of CO2e per day throughout the duration of the cruise. So a five day cruise may amount to significantly more emissions than simply flying to a Caribbean Island and staying for five days. This is even more significant if you fly to get to the starting point for the cruise in addition to the emissions caused by the cruise ship. Cruise ships are designed as a floating resort, and they have much higher emissions profiles than cargo ships designed to optimize the transport of cargo by the pound.

Step back and evaluate if your air travel is required. If you fly multiple times a year, flying less is a meaningful shift in behavior to reduce your emissions. Just like changing your diet requires a shift in how you approach grocery shopping and choosing a restaraunt, changing your travel patterns takes a shift in how you approach your travel plans. And if you find yourself flying, maybe to attend your best friend’s wedding, it does not mean you failed. Continuing to “fly less”, questioning each trip, and striving to find local destinations for leisure travel is an ongoing discipline.

If you already take this approach, will you share a trip you avoided in the comments? Or share how you now enjoy and value your current approach to traveling.

Jim

PS: if you want a bit more info…

Who is flying in the United States?

A trade association representing the leading US airlines, Airlines for America or A4A, partnered with the polling firm Ipsos to survey 3,847 American adults and develop statistics if the respondents had flown in 2025 and over their entire lifetime. The results of their Air Travelers in America: Annual Survey show that about half of Americans flew last year, and that a higher percentage of younger adults flew than older adults:

Also, Americans in prime working ages took the most business trips and overall trips, and people over the age of 65 continued to take personal flights:

These statistics are significantly different on a global scale, where over 80% of the world has never taken an airplane flight - a fact that Boeing’s CEO suggests is a “big growth engine” that Boeing as a corporation is trying to exploit (with significant consequences if they achieve create this “big growth” in airline sales.)

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own ...”
(Epictetus, Discourses. 2.5.4-5. Translation in The Daily Stoic, Ryan Holiday. 2016)

We often confuse two questions related to addressing climate change. First, what collective actions and laws will limit the magnitude of the upcoming change? And second, what individual actions should I take once I understand climate change? People often conflate the two and focus their personal actions on global or national policy solutions where they have some influence but little control - solutions like passing laws to provide EV and solar tax credits, a carbon tax, a cap-and-trade system, payments for clean energy production, or prohibitions on using polluting technologies.

Epictetus taught that a first step when approaching an issue is to determine which actions I control and which actions are external to my control.

The actions I control are the actions I take. And many of the actions I take cause greenhouse gas emissions. Today, with no new laws, I can drastically cut my emissions. I can avoid flying on airplanes and either use virtual meetings, choose vacation destinations closer to home, or find alternative methods of travel which cause lower emissions. I can make a plan to convert my car to an EV and convert my space heating and water heating to heat pumps if I own my home. I can stop eating beef and significantly cut back on eating meat in favor of more vegetarian options. I can buy fewer consumer goods if I have a lifestyle matching a higher income household. These are “choices I actually control.” I do not need anyone to write and pass new legislation directing me to make these choices. And I do not need to wait - I can act today.

I can also directly control a second tier of choices to further support reductions in our collective emissions. I can stop allowing my savings to be used to fund fossil fuel exploration, extraction and processing. I can vote in every election - an extremely meaningful action - and I can consider candidates’ positions on climate change when I vote.

I can also use my voice to advocate for policies I support by speaking up, making sure all of my elected officials understand my opinion and my views on upcoming legislation, and by joining with others who share my concern. I control my voice, and I can train and practice speaking constructively.

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A stoic response starts with recognizing which actions are in my control - and accepting responsibility for my own actions. In my life this has involved changing habits I clung to as if addicted - like eating cheese on almost every sandwich and taking an annual airplane based trip to visit another National Park in the mountains out west.

52% of Americans are alarmed or concerned about climate change. Yet only 8% of new car sales in the US are electric vehicles (EVs) and another 14% are Hybrids. And only 5% of Americans report following vegetarian or vegan diets. The choices we make do not always align with our words and our concerns about climate change.

The most predictable way to change these behaviors is to make a habit out of them. Habits have a profound impact on our choices.

I have had more than one friend tell me that global climate change is too big for their individual actions to make a difference. But that is a fallacy. Climate change is a complex problem specifically because it is the result of the actions of billions of individuals. All of the petroleum refined into gasoline would still be gasoline (or maybe just petroleum buried underground) if consumers did not buy the gasoline and burn it in internal combustion engines.

It is not about blaming myself, simply accepting my contribution. If I won’t accept responsibility for my actions, why should others accept constraints I lobby to put on their actions?

We need collective action to slow our global rate of greenhouse gas emissions. And today, right now, we can accept responsibility for the choices that are our own and act and reduce our emissions. If the 52% of Americans concerned or alarmed about climate change would act accordingly, we would collectively reshape our economy. We control what we purchases. We control our diet. We control our vote. We direct our investments. And we choose how we use our voice to speak in favor of change.

Jim

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Want a bit more on stoicism and climate change, check out Ryan Holiday’s post A Stoic Guide to Climate Change.

In this post I share my experience converting two natural gas furnaces into two dual-fuel heat pumps. Let’s walk through the path I took and then explore the changes in energy used based on energy bills from the first winter season after the installation.

If you want to read more on heat pumps, I recommend reviewing the content that Rewiring America has posted. I will not try to re-create these educational resources here when Rewiring America provides a solid, current overview.

My journey to install heat pumps

There are only a few ways to cut a ton of CO2e emissions per year from my household’s emissions. Optimizing how I heat my home is one of those target actions. For me, it was one that took a few years to plan, gain comfortable with the swap, and finally make the change, especially as this change involved a capital investment in my home.

Celeste and I took a number of other actions first: actions that either had quicker pay back periods or did not even require any additional capital investment. Early in our commitment to lower our emission, Celeste and I installed solar panels on our roof. We oversized the system to account for additional loads as we planned to electrify other energy uses. A year later we bought an EV which uses some of the surplus from the solar panels. But we still had two natural gas furnaces we used for heat: one in the crawl space for the first floor and one in the attic for the second floor.

We talked to contractors and received quotes for heat pumps about five years ago. Living in Asheville, where winter with temperatures are often over 30° F, and also where we have cold spells with low temperature below 10° F, we explored dual fuel heat pump options. In a dual fuel system, we retain our existing natural gas furnace and replace our air conditioner unit with a high efficiency variable speed heat pump. If temperatures outside are above a specific temperature we can adjust, the heat pumps warm the house; and when temperatures drop below the set temperature, the system switches and uses the natural gas furnaces to heat the house. The first time we got quotes, we did not authorize the work. The capital required simply was larger than we anticipated.

In 2024 we decided to make the transition to dual fuel heat pumps.

Our first step was to improve the heat envelope on our home so we were not simply improving how we heat a leaky bucket. The main areas needing improved insulation were in the knee walls, as well as some work in the attic and improving the insulation on the access points for the attic and the knee walls. This insulation work was completed in December of 2024. We also lined our crawl space in February 2025 for moisture and air quality issues as well as improved insulation of the space under our floors.

Next we updated our bid list of contractors with recommendations and refreshed our quotes for installing two dual-fuel heat pumps.

The bid site walks were informative. I am not an HVAC specialist, and I appreciated walking with the representatives of the firms that bid and asking questions and listening to their suggestions and advice. One local contractor tried to talk me out of installing heat pumps and indicated that he had never provided a quote for a dual-fuel heat pump. If someone does not support the product they are bidding for me, it is a major red flag that they may not understand or have experience with the products I want installed. I had a significantly different conversation with the two contractors that I knew were experienced installing heat pumps. They talked about the benefits of both options of high efficiency heat pumps without the alternate fuel option and dual fuel heat pumps retaining my existing natural gas furnace for the coldest nights.

We ended up choosing a family-owned contractor that has serviced my area for four generations: Bolton Services. Our two heat pump units were installed in August of 2025, before the 2025-26 heating season. Now that it’s spring of 2026, I can run the numbers to evaluate our natural gas and electricity use during the winter season of 2025-26 and see how they compare to earlier seasons.

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During the winter of 2025-26, we had our dual-fuel systems switch to natural gas when it was 35° F outside. Our indoor temperatures were comfortable and next year we will try more of the year with the transition at 30° F or 25° F.

Our arrangement with our utility (Duke Energy Progress) provides us with meter readings for the electricity we produce with our solar panels and separately all of the electricity that we use from the grid. The electricity from our solar panels is simply put back on the grid, and the energy used minus energy generated is what we are billed for. In most months, we have an excess that carries forward as a growing credit until it is zeroed out each June.

After a full heating season with the new system, it’s time to see if the investment paid off—both environmentally and financially

Change in Energy Used

To evaluate the impacts of our dual fuel heat pump systems along with the improved insulation (mentioned earlier), I run the numbers as if I do not have solar panels, which may be more relevant for many home owners. It is then a simple shift to explain the impact with the solar generation.

I tracked the kWh of electricity and the therms of natural gas I used each month from September through April for three seasons before installing the heat pumps (2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25) and took an average of these three winter seasons as a baseline for how much energy I used during a season heating with natural gas. I tracked my total energy use for the most recent winter season with the heat pumps installed (2025-26).

During the baseline winter seasons, when our heat was coming from natural gas furnaces, we used a Vornado space heater to keep one particular room we occupied a bit warmer. We had excess electric credits from our solar system, so the heat from the Vornado resistance space heater was “free” for cost, and zeroed out on our annual emission inventory. That said, resistance heat is one of the least efficient ways to heat a room - causing more emissions than burning natural gas. To eliminate the large draw from the resistance heater, this winter season we also stopped using the Vornado space heater. This past winter season we simply turned the thermostat up a degree or two and kept the first floor warm enough to assure that the room of concern was comfortable.

Overall, we used more electricity and less natural gas during the most recent winter.

Heating with dual fuel heat pumps last winter, we used 1,504 kWh more electricity and 318 therms less natural gas. In these units, it is hard to compare the increased electric use and the decreased natural gas use. So I’ll convert them to the same units: first to dollars (USD) and second to tons of CO2e emissions.

Change in my bills

The marginal cost on my utility bills of an additional kWh of electricity is 12.32¢ and an additional therm of natural gas is $1.64. These values include the North Carolina 6% sales tax. Using these conversion rates, the following change occurred for the winter of 2025-26:

+$185 electricity bill charges

-$522 natural gas bill charges

-$337 total bill change over the winter season

So, over the seven month winter season in 2025-26 I saved $337 on the combination of my electric and natural gas bills.

Emissions shift

To convert the changes in electricity use to tons of CO2e emissions, I used the conversion factors for North Carolina’s electric grid from the Energy Information Agency. The conversion is 670 lbs CO2e/MWh which is equivalent to 0.0003039 tons/kWh.

To convert the changes in natural gas use to tons of CO2e emissions, I used the conversion factor from the USEPA. The conversion is 0.0053 tons CO2e/therm. It is important to point out that this is a simple conversion based on changing all of the carbon in the natural gas (CH4) into carbon dioxide (CO2). This number is NOT a life-cycle analysis of all of the releases and energy used to provide that extra therm of natural gas. Adding in the whole life cycle for releases of methane at leaks and the energy used to generate the natural gas would add 20% to 40% to the emissions for natural gas.

Using these conversions, the following change in emissions occurred for the winter of 2025-26:

+0.46 tons CO2e from electricity

-1.69 tons CO2e from natural gas use

-1.23 tons CO2e change over the winter season

Over the seven month winter season in 2025-26 my greenhouse gas emissions were 1.23 tons CO2e less than during a typical winter season heating with natural gas. Here is a graphic showing the emissions during the three baseline winter seasons and last year (2025-26) when the dual fuel heat pumps were used.

Below is a graph of the CO2e emissions for my total energy use by month providing a more detailed view.

I calculated the change in cost and emissions as an illustration for houses that do not have solar panels. However, since my home has solar panels which are oversized, my emissions changes were a decrease of the full 1.69 tons CO2e from the natural gas. If you add on 30% to better approximate the life-cycle emissions from that natural gas which includes production and transportation, the emissions reduction was over 2 tons CO2e.

Also, since I generated the additional electricity, the savings last year was also estimated at $522, not just $337.

Also, the three baseline winter seasons (2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25) were all a bit warmer than average. In contrast, last winter (2025-26) was cooler than normal. So this comparison underestimates the actual amount of emissions reductions and cost savings.

It is difficult to find many actions that can reduce over a ton of emissions from our carbon footprint. Celeste & I remain pleased with the performance of Bolton Servicers installing our heat pumps, pleased with the comfort in our home, and thrilled with the reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions.

As mentioned earlier, changing to heat pumps was not our first action to bring down our emissions. Before taking this step, we added solar panels, bought an EV, changed our diet to mostly vegan, and insulated our home. All of these previous steps either saved us money or had a reasonable pay-back period. The two heat pumps cost around $8,000 to $10,000 more than simply replacing our older AC units with new, traditional AC units and continuing on with natural gas heating. Saving $522 per year just gets us to covering the replacement cost of these units over a 15 to 20 year expected life cycle. But not by a lot and not with a cost of money factored in.

But installing the heat pumps was not about saving money. It was about continuing a commitment to lower our emissions. Heat pumps are available today. They heat homes adequately to maintain comfort. There was nothing stopping us from doing this earlier other than budget concerns and stacking changes in a sequence to work through.

For Celeste and I, cost is a real factor but it is not the anchoring criteria for right actions or for following our faith and convictions.

I encourage you to talk with local contractors well before you need a new furnace or air conditioning unit, explore your budget options, and plan for a future with lower emissions. And find local contractors that are known for installing heat pumps. If you go to a contractor that does not install heat pumps, they will sell you what they know - a natural gas furnace.

I hope this overview of the actual impact of heat pumps on our household energy use and energy bills can help in your planning.

Jim

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• reduce greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the amount of energy used to heat and cool your house,

• reduce your monthly bills to heat and cool the home, and

• improve your comfort in your home by maintaining even temperatures inside the house.

The Heat Envelope

When it’s cold out, your home loses heat to the outdoors. The layer that surrounds the inside of your house where temperature is controlled is called the heat envelope - typically exterior walls, the ceiling, the doors and windows, the floor.

Heat still escapes the heat envelope, the goal is to minimize heat loss while maintaining some infiltration of fresh air. An initial step in making a home use less energy (and emit less greenhouse gas) is improving the heat envelope to optimize the amount of heat retained in the house.

You probably know where there are issues in your heat envelope: You know which rooms get cold or feel drafty; you know the rooms where you won’t sit and read a book because the space is too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. (Note that this uneven heating can also be related to how your heating system is distributing heat.)

Some heat is lost through the direct movement of air between the inside and outside of the heat envelope through cracks and gaps in the heat envelope. Heat also escapes through the sealed portion of the heat envelope like through poorly insulated walls, windows, floors, or ceilings.

A good first step in evaluating how to (or if to) improve your heat envelope is to have a home energy audit. During the home energy audit, a trained individual will examine your energy use compared to similar houses and complete at least two elements during an on-site inspection: perform a blower door test and take infrared images to look for heat loss.

Blower Door Test

During a blower door test, a powerful fan is set in an exterior doorway with a covering to block the rest of the door. The fan blows air out of the house, lowering the air pressure inside the house. In a calibrated blower door test, the technician uses the differences in air pressure at a given fan rating along with information on your house to estimate air leakage in the house prior to any improvements. The leakage can be compared to comparable houses and even to building codes to evaluate the need to make improvements and the potential benefits.

There are situations where initial conditions show too many areas for leakage and some remediation may be warranted before a blower door test - like fixing holes, open gaps, or significantly large breaks in door and window seals.

All houses leak air. It is important that homes have some transfer of air to maintain healthy indoor air. The goal is not to eliminate all leakage, just to minimize the leakage. Building codes define the minimum allowable leakage, and a house that is too tight may even require mechanical ventilation to assure air turnover. So the goal is to reduce leakage, but not hermetically seal our home.

The US Energy Department provides more information on blower door tests.

Infrared Imagery

Infrared imagery can help show you where you are losing heat in the winter.

The method converts measurements of infrared electromagnetic waves into the temperature of my walls and ceilings. Infrared imagery should be captured when there is at least a 20° F difference between inside and outside temperatures (warmer or colder). Make sure that the assessor agrees to provide you with the paired infrared and visual light images so you can use them later and refer back to them if you decide to talk to contractors about insulation improvement options or perform the work yourself.

Home Energy Audit Request

When you request a home energy audit, be sure that the following elements are addressed in the scope of work any contractor provides with their scope:

• Perform a calibrated blower door test.

• Collect thermal images of any unusual areas in the heat envelope collected with paired visual light images. All images will be provided with the final report. The images will be collected when outside temperatures are at least 20° F colder or 15° F warmer than inside temperatures.

A first step in finding a contractor for a home energy audit is to check in with your electric utility. Some utilities offer discounts or credits for home energy audits - like Duke Energy which services parts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Florida. There are also programs in many parts of the United States offering help to income qualified households (see listing).

Infrared Images and My Home Heat Envelope

The two most valuable elements of our energy audit process were the infrared imagery and also having a contractor included in the process that defined scopes of work for suggested improvements that included firm costs. We had a number of issues, especially with the ways our knee walls were insulated when the house was built 25 years ago. I’ll walk through one area as an example to show you how the infrared images helped us understand and evaluate the issue and also to evaluate the area again after the contractor fixed the insulation.

Our house has a small overhang above the front porch that is outside the heat envelope. This overhang abuts a small storage closet and a bathroom shower on the second floor which are inside the heat envelope. The wall that separates the back of the shower and the storage closet was constructed poorly and had significant gaps in the insulation. I didn’t understand this fully until we were well into this project and were accessing this small area over the front porch that I had never opened up.

I used an infrared camera to capture both infrared and visual images around our home in 2023 during a hot summer day when our house was cooled by our air conditioner. The images documented the areas where our walls, ceilings and floors were exceptionally warm and allowed heat to enter our house when the air conditioner was on. In the storage room, the plastic sheeting at the back of the storage room was 103° F where the insulation had either settled or never been present. And the back and side of the shower walls were above 80° F. Here are two pairs of images from this area. The hotter portions of the wall show up as yellow or even white with the temperature scale provided in each infrared image.

The first pair shows the storage room with adequately insulated ceiling joists on the right, and showing a significant gap in the insulation in the back wall. This insulation gap was so significant, it even allowed visible light to enter the storage room through the plastic sheeting which can be seen in the visual light image.

The image pair from the bathroom shows how hot the back of the shower wall was and how this heat extended to the walls of the bathroom.

We discussed the project with and then hired a local contractor (Conservation Pros) who gave us a quote to improve our heat envelop for this wall, our knee walls, all of our knee wall and attic access points, and some areas where the blown-in insulation was missing between some joists in the sloped ceilings. When we accessed the area over our porch (outside the heat envelope), the picture below shows an area where insulation was missing from the wall behind the shower.

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In this area, the contractor removed the poorly constructed blown-in insulation and placed fiberglass insulation between each of the studs. The image below also shows the newly insulated wall (before a cover insulated board was installed) with the small access port to the area over the porch which the contractor also filled with insulation.

To finish, the contractor put insulating rigid foam boards over the insulated stud walls and sealed the gaps.

Infrared images taken after the project was complete document how effective this project was at eliminating heat loss (winter) or gain (summer). The following image pairs were taken during a particularly cold period in the winter after the project - so heat leakage would show up as exceptionally cold areas of the walls. The colder portions of the wall show up as purple. In these infrared images there is a temperature scale on the images, and the warmest and coldest spots in the photos are labeled as well as the temperature in the center of the photo. And the walls have a much more even heat profile than during the pre-project image pairs which were taken during a hot summer day.

The image pair from the storage room shows a drastic shift in the range of temperatures on the inside walls of this space.

And the image pair in the bathroom also shows how the back of the shower is no longer leaking heat and the walls no longer show major intrusion of the outdoor temperature.

This project led to a noticeable difference in the temperatures in our house. We also appreciated and gained trust in the contractor’s staff, so we eventually had them encapsulate our crawl space also, improving both the humidity and temperature of the first floor.

I took all of these infrared and visual light image pairs. For the initial 2023 images I was able to borrow a FLIR brand thermal camera from a home energy audit contractor. The device was a bit older, and the images have a low resolution and you can see the lower resolution in the images.

The second, post project images in 2025 were taken with a TOPDON thermal camera attachment for my Pixel and my Pixel phone’s camera for the visual light images. TOPDON offers infrared camera attachments that connect to Pixels or iPhones and sell for under $300. Photography has been a hobby of mine since I was in middle school (my dad was an aerial photographer during World War II, and got me interested in photography.) So I was rather excited to get one and try it out. I have taken similar thermal images to examine heat envelopes at our church and at some neighbor’s homes - it is rather easy and informative.

While I took these images, any good energy audit contractor will provide similar image pairs as long as you stipulate that you want them.

Fireplace: a simple fix

Not all improvements are complicated or expensive.

We could feel cold air in the winter and warm air in the summer entering our house from our unvented natural gas fireplace, and the thermal images confirmed the problem. The space behind the fireplace is apparently not insulated. Removing this or insulating this properly had a significant cost, so we choose to simply order a black insulated draft guard cover which is held in place with magnets. This rather inexpensive fix also created a noticeable difference in the cold drafts during winter days in our living room. It’s not the perfect solution, but it is simple, inexpensive and the room is now more comfortable.

Sealing up the drafts in my own home didn’t require an act of Congress or a sweeping federal mandate. It just took a bit of curiosity and a willingness to look closely at the “leaky bucket” I was paying to keep warm.

Once you have optimized your home’s heat envelope—ensuring you actually keep the heat you pay for inside the house—you’ll be ready to evaluate how you generate that heat in the first place. Next week, we will explore heat pumps and options available to maintain a comfortable home while lowering emissions.

Jim

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Each of us does not cause the same amount of emissions. People in the top 10% of personal income globally cause almost half of our global greenhouse gas emissions.

People with higher incomes cause more emissions. I say income, though in developing economies it’s difficult to accurately measure income so economists often measure expenditures (or consumption) as a more reliable proxy for welfare. I will talk about “income” as it is a term we use in America, but recognize that this actually translates to how much a person is able to consume for over four-fifths of the global population that live in undeveloped or developing economies.

The bar chart below divides global greenhouse gas emissions by global income deciles. Each decile represents 10% of the population. So decile 1 shows the emissions of the bottom 10% of people ranked by income, decile 2 shows the emissions from people making more than 10% of people up to 20% of people, on up to decile 10 which shows the emissions from people making more than 90% of other people in the world (data from IEA where they have engaging interactive graphics worth exploring).

• The top 10% making the highest incomes globally (decile 10) cause almost half of the greenhouse gas emissions. These are people with incomes over $54.60 per day or $19,929 per year.

• The top 20% (deciles 9 and 10) emit two-thirds of the global emissions. These are people with incomes over $29.20 per day or $10,658 per year.

• The poorest half of the people in the world, with incomes below the median income (Deciles 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 combined), emit less than 10% of the greenhouse gas emissions. These are people with incomes less than $9.35 per day or $3,413 per year.

In the United States, over 80% of people have an income greater than $29.20 per day or $10,658 per year. So over 80% of Americans are in the top 10% by global income - the category responsible for almost half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

(You can explore income decile data globally and by country at Our World in Data based on World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform, 2025)

This same relationship holds within countries also: People who have higher incomes cause more greenhouse gas emissions. This is true in developed economies (e.g. United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia) as well as developing economies (e.g. China, India, all of the middle east except Israel, all of Central and South America except French Guiana). The following graphic shows the average per capita greenhouse gas emissions (tons of CO2e on the y-axis) for each income decile in the United States, European Union, China and India (source IEA):

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The International Energy Agency (IEA) discussed this further in their 2023 overview titled The world’s top 1% of emitters produce over 1000 times more CO2 than the bottom 1%.

“The richest group often has the largest financial means to adopt energy-efficient and low-emissions solutions that involve high upfront costs. In doing so, they form the initial customer base that can help enable the manufacturing of these technologies to be brought to scale. For example, a large share of electric vehicles were purchased by high-income individuals at first, but as sales increase with models at varied price points, EVs are becoming more ubiquitous.”

The IEA further explored the need for behavior change in their 2021 post Do we need to change our behaviour to reach net zero by 2050?:

“But technology alone is not enough: net zero emissions in 2050 cannot happen without the consent and active support of people. In part, this involves one-off events that are not counted as behavioural changes but involve a mixture of low carbon technologies and people’s engagement, such as buying an electric vehicle (EV) or insulating a loft. However, behavioural changes – meaning adjustments in everyday life that reduce wasteful or excessive energy consumption – are also needed. They are especially important in richer parts of the world where energy intensive lifestyles are the norm. Behavioural changes include cycling or walking instead of driving, turning down heating, and going on holiday nearer to home. In addition, efforts by manufacturers to use materials more efficiently and encourage consumers to recycle can reduce energy use in industry.

Behavioural changes can and do happen. From diet to smoking to throw-away plastic packaging, past experience shows that people’s attitudes and habits are not set in stone.”

Having a higher income allows us to take more actions that reduce our emissions.

Some actions to reduce emissions require an upfront outlay of capital that takes years to recover the cost—like installing solar panels or upgrading insulation. Other choices might carry an upfront cost higher than the expected cost reductions in your monthly bills, like adding a heat pump to your HVAC system.

You might anticipate that people who make more money will then actively drive their emissions lower than people who make less money. People making more money simply have more resources to make these changes, more capital to invest.

For some people, this is the case.

But for the vast majority, this is simply not the case. Instead, people who make more money cause more greenhouse gas emissions through their purchase decisions.

“But I…” My reasons not to change

Talking to people about changing their behavior to lower their emissions, I hear a lot of reasons why people haven’t made—or feel they can’t make—specific changes. Some of these constraints are very real. Others sound like rationalizations I have used myself. They are often justifications constructed to explain our existing behavior when our behavior conflicts with with our values:

• “I worked my entire career to be able to travel more when I retired. I’ll fly on lower emission planes when airlines fly them.”

• “I can’t afford to upgrade the electric plugs in my garage to support an EV.”

• “I really love cheese (or milk, or beef…) and I’ve always eaten it.”

• “My spouse isn’t going to change, and it’s hard to change alone.”

• “My actions really don’t matter if 8 billion other people don’t change.”

• “I think this is a systems issue, and I’m waiting for the system to change.” (see previous post for this one)

Changing my actions is climate action

If you live in the United States and earn more than $20,000 a year, your personal emissions are likely in the top 10% globally.

The paradox is that people with the most resources available to reduce our emissions are, generally, the ones causing the most greenhouse gases.

The entire premise of CO2mmit is asking people to commit to reducing the greenhouse gases they cause. The technology and the behavioral roadmap already exist to significantly reduce our emissions. The remaining question is: will we act?

When we do change our actions and lower our emissions, we cause a real reduction in emissions, a shift in markets enhancing lower emission goods and services, and a shift in social norms regarding what those around us see people in their peer group doing. And we find that we are acting in alignment with our values.

Jim

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Electric Vehicles are affordable.

In December of 2025, car shoppers paid an average of $50,326 for new cars according to Kelley Blue Book. Of the top ten EVs sold last year in the United States, eight have base models in 2026 priced below the average cost of a new internal combustion engine vehicle. This is a significant shift from previous years. For many models, prices dropped after the EV tax credits were removed and manufacturers adjusted prices to assure their vehicles were competitive in the United States.

Data for the top 10 EVs in the US based on units sold in 2025 from caranddriver.com

And the cost to charge an EV is significantly less than (roughly half) the cost to fill-up the tank on an internal gasoline powered car (Forbes and CNET).

EV range is now typically over 300 miles on a charge

The range of an EV on a full charge now matches the range of a typical internal combustion engine vehicle on a full tank of gas. 2026 EV models sold in the United States typically have over a 300 mile range on a full charge.

Charging at home is convenient and easy.

No more stops at a gas station. With an EV you can charge at home. If you own your home, a level 2 charger costs around $1,000 to install and will charge an EV to 80% over a couple hours while you sleep. You can also trickle charge an EV using a standard 120-volt household outlet in your garage (Level 1 charging). Trickle charging adds about 3–5 miles of range per hour, or roughly 30–40 miles overnight, which is suitable for short daily commutes. It is recommended to use a circuit that does not have other active loads to avoid tripping breakers.

The charging station network near freeways is robust and growing.

The network of charging stations has grown. There are now charging stations along freeway routes across the United States for long-distance travel. It does take a bit longer to charge an EV than to fill-up a gas tank while traveling, which balances against the time saved never stopping at a gas station around town. Personally, I take a short walk during the 20-minute recharge stops on long-distance trips - sitting for multiple hours straight has health risks.

EV lithium-ion batteries are capable of lasting over a decade.

The sale of EVs (or battery electric vehicles on the chart below) has increased over the last 6 years. We do not have 20-year old EVs that use today’s technology to gather a robust data set on how long EV batteries last.

With this limitation, the current data suggests 10 to 20 years is a reasonable expectation for the life of an EV battery. There is some drop-off in range as the battery ages, but the car keeps functioning unlike when a timing belt breaks or a head gasket fails in an internal combustion engine. While there are only a limited number of EVs older than 10 years old, and the battery technology has advanced since these cars were produced, they do offer a window into what to expect. Based on data from the research firm Recurrent, “among EVs that are 10 years old or older, only 8.5% have ever had a battery replacement. More than 90% of them are still on their original battery.” (NPR, March 2 2026)

And EVs require less maintenance than internal combustion engine or hybrid vehicles. Tires on an EV may wear out faster due to vehicle weight, but this cost is offset by the lack of oil changes and the lack of wear caused by exploding gasoline in tightly engineered cylinders in an internal combustion engine.

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Is my choice of vehicle important?

The transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States (in 2022 - USEPA). And within the Transportation Sector, light-duty vehicles (cars and pickups most people drive) account for over half of the transportation related greenhouse gas emissions.

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States requires that individual driving habits change. And we have the technology, infrastructure and available automobile models today that enables this change.

And, yes, EVs have lower emissions than internal combustion engines.

It may appear that changing from an internal combustion engine to a battery electric vehicle simply changes the fuel you are using to power the vehicle - gasoline to electricity. But this shift also significantly reduces the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from your travel.

A life cycle assessment is a method to evaluate the impact of a good or service over the entire lifetime of a car (or any good or service) - including production, transportation, sales, use, and disposal or reuse. When we look at the life cycle assessment of EVs, we observe higher emissions during production of the battery in the EV in comparison to the production of an internal combustion car. However, in a short period of time the lower emissions from driving the EV lead to an overall lower emission from the EV. This is true across different mixes of electric generation across the United States. Electric vehicles cause less greenhouse gas emissions.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) provides a tool that compares the life cycle assessment for comparable internal combustion engine vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles, and full battery electric vehicles (EVs). Here is the IEA output for a medium-sized car used for city commuting (e.g. a Hyundai Ionic5 EV or a Honda Accord). Note that within two years the internal combustion engine option creates the most emissions of greenhouse gases (tCO2e or “tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions”).

Ranking our options to reduce our emissions

1. Live without a car

2. Drive an electric vehicle

3. Drive a hybrid ranked by highest fuel efficiency

4. Drive an internal combustion engine vehicle again ranked by fuel efficiency

What to do now?

It is important to understand the cues and the process that impact your actions when you buy a car. Each person is different, so this does take some exploration of your own behavior. Typically, when your existing car hits the end of its useful life (at least partially unexpectedly) or when you land that new job that requires that you buy reliable transportation, you need to have some homework already completed. For me, the cue to buy my next car has been when I unexpectedly have a repair bill on my existing car and the estimate comes in well over the value of the car itself. At that point, I shop and buy over a rather short period of time.

To assure your next car purchase aligns with your values, complete some homework before your cue to buy a new car.

• Ask friends how they like their EV and what they’d recommend; ask friends about any concerns you have

• Test drive a few EVs, either a friend’s or through a dealership

• Explore charging options where you live; if you own a home, examine the cost of upgrading electric infrastructure in your garage.

Currently 52% of Americans are concerned or alarmed about climate change. But only 8% of new car sales in the United States are EVs and another 14% hybrids or plug-in hybrids. Any policy change to shift this ratio will be focused on requiring or coercing people to buy an EV (or a hybrid as an alternative). We can already make the change over to drive an EV today without waiting for policies that require or incentivize this choice.

Buying another new internal combustion engine car impacts our collective emissions trajectory for years to come. A review of 50,000 junked cars in 2023 provided an average lifespan of a vehicle in the US of 16.6 years. So a new internal combustion engine vehicle bought in 2026 in the US will probably burn gasoline through 2042.

Today EVs are affordable, practical, and cleaner than traditional internal combustion engine vehicles. We don’t need to wait for a new law, a new technology or a new incentive. Our actions can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Jim

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Their conclusion? Personal change is nice, but just not that important.

Almost all of the same climate-active friends have made personal behavior changes to reduce their emissions. They are more likely to have installed solar panels, bought an EV or hybrid, or reduced their meat consumption. Some conveniently skip some high-impact changes they don’t want to make—like giving up beef or flying less.

Let’s start this discussion with a point of agreement: We absolutely do need systemic change. We need better laws, regulations, zoning ordinances, and policies.

But this is not an either/or conversation. We must advocate for better policy and reduce our personal emissions. Taking action to reduce our greenhouse gas footprint doesn’t require a new law or a change to the local zoning ordinance. Our purchase decisions are completely in our control. There are real options available to us that emit less. And while some actions require upfront capital, others save money—like eating a vegetarian diet or choosing to avoid flying.

We can not continue waiting

It has been over 40 years since Dr. Carl Sagan testified before Congress in 1985, and 38 years since Dr. James Hansen warned the US Senate in 1988. Scientists have put forward compelling and digestible overviews of the science and the projected impacts. Yet in the United States we have failed to pass a legal framework limiting greenhouse gas emissions. It is not as simple as waiting for Democrats to control the US House, Senate and White House. During the first two years of every Democratic President since the 1980s—the Clinton, Obama, and Biden administrations—Democrats controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House and there was no legal structure put in place to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Instead Democrat administrations relied on the endangerment finding to use the Clean Air Act to attempt limited regulation of power plants or fuel efficiency standards.

We absolutely need to continue to advocate for better laws and policy, but we should not wait to cut our emissions. If the 52% of Americans who are concerned or alarmed about climate change acted to reduce the emissions our purchases cause, we would make a significant difference. We would shift US markets for goods and services, and fundamentally change the political will in Congress. We don’t need to wait for a federal law or tax rebate.

Who takes actions based on moral choices?

Let’s examine who we expect to act:

1. The government (to pass laws)

2. Corporations (to reduce emissions and sell lower emission products)

3. People (to avoid spending money on choices that cause emissions)

Which of these actors have the agency to make moral choices beyond financial concerns?

Corporations are not moral actors. Corporations shield individual owners from the consequences of the actions of the company - this is the antithesis of establishing a moral actor. Even when corporations commit to green or sustainable goals, they readily drop these commitments when it is beneficial to grow earnings or shareholder value. Take for example GM: as recently as 2024, GM said “GM has committed to electrifying 50% of its fleet by 2030. By 2035, 100% of our automotive fleet, for passenger and light-duty vehicles, will be electric.” But then in 2026 GM announced a $6 billion charge against earnings to reduce its planned EV production. GM’s reversal is sometimes linked to shifting government incentives for EVs, but it seems more logical that the shift is ultimately linked to the lack of growth of EV new car sales in the United States. Ford has a similar trajectory.

We cannot expect corporations to lead; their positions depend on the purchases of their customers and on creating shareholder value (profit). Maximizing shareholder value is not a bad thing, but frequently it does not align with climate goals.

The Government rarely leads. In a democracy, politicians follow the public or the donors to their Political Action Committees (PACs). Relying on the government to make energy more expensive, tell us what to eat, or restrict air travel can create a populist pushback against the “solution” if we are not already taking these actions. (Take Australia as an example.)

You and I Are the Moral Actors

You and I have moral agency. We have the freedom to make choices and act according to our values.

When more people voluntarily act we will reduce emissions, boost markets for low-emissions goods, and change the calculation politicians make when evaluating support for climate requirements. This is not the only change we need - but it is the only action completely in our control. And it is an important wedge in the broad range of emissions reductions we need. A wedge completely in our control, today.

We must stop rationalizing our high-emission choices.

A climate-active friend told me that his flight oversees will take off whether or not he bought a ticket, so his personal choice to fly overseas simply does not matter. But the decrease in commercial aircraft operations during and after the COVID-19 shutdown proves otherwise: when people stopped buying tickets, airlines responded by reducing flights. And as people started buying tickets again, airlines resumed their flights. The following graph covers the response of airlines to the reduced number of tickets sold in response to COVID.

This demand side argument holds across many markets: airline flights, EV car sales, restaurants offering vegetarian menu options. We, the consumers, have more agency than we understand.

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…”

(Epictetus, Discourses. 2.5.4-5)

While we advocate for better policy, it is essential that we also focus attention on climate mitigation in our direct control - reducing the emissions caused by our actions.

Jim

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While this sounds like something you do - an action you take - it is more of an aspiration. It is a statement describing a desired outcome. The specific actions you take to get there are much more detailed and define specific actions that fit into your day.

Exactly how do we stop eating hamburgers, and eat less pulled pork, and eat more vegetarian options? This begins the conversation of how to convert aspirations into actions - and how to convert our habits into climate actions.

For a few years in a row I committed to my doctor to switch to a “Mediterranean Diet” as my cholesterol levels were at the upper end of the target range. I would change for a meal, or a day, but as a week or a month went by and I was surrounded by the same cues I had before, I reverted mostly back to my previous diet. Changing a deeply ingrained habitual behavior, such as what I eat for lunch and dinner or where I get a meal out is a challenge. And it is virtually impossible if I do not change the cues that trigger my food choices.

Behavior change is not as simple as reading a post I agree with and then my behavior changes.

I have years or decades of training on my current behaviors. Simply committing to reduce my emissions won’t get me to stop eating two sticks of cheese a week, stop me from ordering a burger or chicken sandwich the next time I’m at a fast-food restaurant, or stop me from ordering chorizo on my huevos rancheros at my favorite diner. Not if these behaviors were actions I had repeated for the last decade.

To change my diet, I need to understand my current habits related to my diet — the actions I do with minimal thought as if automatic. Most of the time, these habits are healthy — they save me time and mental energy. If I had to actually think through every choice I make in a day, I’d be frozen in indecision: evaluation paralysis. The goal is not to eliminate our habits, but to be aware of them and find ways to adjust the habitual behavior we want to change.

In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear coherently summarizes decades of work on our habit loops.

When a cue happens in our environment, we develop a craving. The craving leads us to act or respond with a behavior or response that gains some type of reward. And the reward reinforces the link between the cue and the craving which starts the cycle again the next time we are confronted with the cue.

For me, the cravings often go unnoticed. When I see my phone sitting on a table, I don’t consciously feel a craving - I just pick it up, check the weather, then the news, maybe a new text message and subsequently move on to skimming emails and then checking how my latest Substack post is being received…. An entire sequence that is triggered by seeing my phone (or maybe cued by finishing a task and thinking “I want a quick break”). A perfect example of cue, craving, response, reward.

Similarly, the reward can be below my level of consciousness. It is not a reward like a payment - it is a psychological reward. I might get to relax, or just tune out for a few minutes. I give myself a mental break even if I might, on a conscious level, understand that a short walk is a much better way to take a break than checking Google News (again).

Cues that impact what we eat

We constantly receive a myriad of cues related to eating, and these help us make our way through the broad suite of options available to us.

Seeing that it’s 11:55 AM is a cue for lunch; simply walking by my kitchen can be a cue to grab a snack; driving by the Dunkin Donuts on the corner can be a cue for desiring a cup of coffee (and maybe a donut while I am there).

One strategy for eating no beef and less meat is in managing our cues. James Clear recommends that we “reduce exposure. Remove the cues of your bad habits from your environment.” To eat no beef and less meat, this might include any or all of the following “actions”:

• Have no beef and less meat in your refrigerator. Begin by not buying beef and buying less meat at the grocery store. At the same time, buy alternatives you like - for me that’s spicy jalapeño hummus & avocado as a base for lunch sandwiches.

• Don’t walk into a restaurant where you always get a hamburger. Instead, take a minute and list out a suite of local restaurants you will eat at, and another list of restaurants that do not support the diet you are trying to eat. Then suggest a restaurant the next time you are going out with friends - or suggest an alternative when they pick a place that just serves steaks or burgers. The menu and ordering process at a steak house is a clear cue for a craving for a good cut of beef. Simply not walking into the steak house, or not entering a drive-through for your favorite fast-food burger stop is a meaningful strategy. And it takes having alternatives.

• When eating out, pick what you want to eat from the on-line menu before entering the restaurant so that ordering is less influenced by the picture of the dishes the restaurant puts in their menu, the smells of the food or the conversation at the table.

• Have desirable alternate food items in your refrigerator and food pantry. Create a new cue that supports the diet you choose.

Another path is to work on the “reward” - make sure that eating vegetarian meals is enjoyable and take a moment to appreciate the choice you have made - even if this feels mechanical at times. When we focus on a positive reward for an action we want to repeat, we reinforce the “desire” the next time we are exposed to the cues that were present.

• Get a meatless meal with friends at a restaurant that offers good vegetarian meals.

• Anticipate ordering your favorite vegetarian meal - like Pad Thai with vegetables or vegetable fajitas.

• Enjoy a dairy free treat like So Delicious cashew-based ice cream.

• After you cook a new vegetarian meal, take a minute to linger on how good it tasted even if it was as simple as Rotel, black beans and rice.

Lingering on your own satisfaction can help build a cue to cook that meal again. (“Make it satisfying” in Atomic Habits.)

And make it easy to eat vegetarian (and eat no beef) with a few simple steps:

• Buy a vegetarian cookbook - one that looks like you’d cook the meals, not one where each recipe sounds like it will take a full day to cook. And list out the ingredients for a meal on your shopping list. Power Plates by Gena Hamshaw helped me learn to be a better vegetarian cook.

• Pre-plan your meatless meals and make a grocery list to assure you buy what you need while in the store.

• Control what you have in your kitchen. Just having almond milk in the refrigerator and no cow’s milk makes it almost a certainty that you’ll at least try the almond milk in your coffee - if, as I do, drink coffee with creamer.

• Create a list of vegetarian restaurants near you to try. Reduce the barrier to finding the restaurant to eat at when you are hungry and in a hurry. Find and try all of the Indian and Thai restaurants in your area - explore the different dishes. For a quick meal, I enjoy build-your-own burrito places like Chipotle or Moe’s. Walking into an appropriate restaurant is the most certain way to make sure there are multiple meatless options available that taste great.

• Load the Happy Cow app on your phone so you can find vegetarian friendly restaurants when on the road (or at home).

Not practicing is practicing

Don’t try to change everything at once.

And accept that you will regress on occasion. Examine the cues leading up to biting into that hamburger. By examining what cues triggered the behaviors you are trying to avoid can help you find ways to minimize or eliminate those cues.

“Habit formation is the process by which a behavior becomes progressively more automatic through repetition. The more you repeat an activity, the more the structure of your brain changes to become efficient at that activity. Neuroscientists call this long-term potentiation, which refers to the strengthening of connections between neurons in the brain based on recent patterns of activity. With each repetition, cell-to-cell signaling improves and the neural connections tighten...

“Each time you repeat an action, you are activating a particular neural circuit associated with that habit. This means that simply putting in your reps is one of the most critical steps you can take to encoding a new habit.”

James Clear. 2018. Atomic Habits. Chapter 11; p143-144

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Suggestions for this week

Take time to break down the habits and routines that impact your diet - especially those that appear to get in the way of eating no beef and less meat.

Take the time to explore Atomic Habits by James Clear as if it were a climate change book - you may find it valuable for both how you address climate change and how you address other areas in your life.

Now go explore what it means to hold an aspiration to eat no beef and less meat.

Jim

This blog will explore personal actions that make a tangible difference in addressing climate change. And this week the focus is on a choice we make every day: what we eat. The good news is that one of the most immediate and impactful steps we can take is also simple, cost-effective, and comes with personal health benefits.

This isn’t about total sacrifice; it’s about smart substitution and powerful change. There are very few individual actions that immediately cut a half-ton or more of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) emissions each year. Eating no beef and less meat is one of those changes. For me, this shift has saved money and aligned with my doctor’s suggestion to reduce my cholesterol intake. It’s a triple-win: planet, wallet, and health. And honestly, I enjoy the new variety of foods I eat.

Have you ever calculated the emissions that your dietary choices cause? HERE is a spreadsheet to calculate the annual emissions (tons CO2e/year) from your diet with instructions on the first tab. In this spreadsheet you account for your daily calorie intake to improve accuracy. Many other tools I have seen calculate dietary emissions without letting you understand the total calories of your choices - with the other tools it is impossible to tell if you are actually matching your food intake, and it is impossible to accurately compare different diets with the same caloric intake.

Why less meat?

Our appetite for meat, particularly in the West, raises our greenhouse gas emissions. The average American consumes about 220 pounds of meat annually, typically split as roughly ¼ beef, ¼ pork, and ½ poultry. This habit of centering every meal around a meat protein contributes to our emissions.

In general, a serving of meat – pork, chicken, beef, fish — causes more greenhouse gas emissions than a serving of high-protein vegetarian options like nuts, seeds, beans or lentils. Reducing meat intake significantly reduces emissions. The goal is not to punish ourselves for an occasional pulled pork or chicken sandwich, but to transition toward sustainable habits and meals. Simply cutting 90% of the meat out of your diet provides an enormous reduction in emissions. Substituting dairy products with alternate products like almond milk or cashew ice cream further reduces emissions. The point is not total, immediate perfection, but intentional, consistent change. By making this shift, we reduce our contribution to the global issue and signal to the food system that demand is shifting.

Why no beef?

While eating less meat is important, eliminating beef is paramount.

Cows are biologically different from pigs, chickens or fish. Cows (and sheep) are ruminants and have a more complex stomach with a rumen, where they pre-digest food. When cows swallow grasses and other foods we can not eat, specialized bacteria begin breaking the food down, creating methane as a waste product. They belch the methane back out into the air. This methane is a much more potent gas than carbon dioxide.

Ruminants include deer and other animals living naturally in many areas of the world. The problem with cattle is one of scale. We are currently raising a massive number of cattle to supply grocery stores and fast-food chains with the immense quantities of beef and dairy we purchase. Today, there are an estimated 1.57 billion head of cattle globally, while there are under 100 million deer worldwide. This difference in scale, driven by consumer demand, is why beef production is a major climate issue.

The immediate impact of choosing “no beef” is dramatic. When you stop eating beef - even if you simply substitute fish, chicken and pork in for the beef - you can cut over a half a ton of CO2e from your annual emissions of greenhouse gases.

To illustrate the impact, I estimated the annual CO2e emissions from four different diets all consuming 2,400 calories per day.

• Standard American: A diet with typical meat consumption of 220 pounds per day and 1/4 of that being beef causes an annual emission of 2.13 tons CO2e/year.

• High Beef: This same diet with 3/4 of the meat being consumed as beef causes an annual emission of 3.12 tons CO2e/year - a full ton per year higher.

• No Beef: This same diet again except all of the meat is consumed as chicken, pork, fish causes 1.42 tons CO2e/year — even with the exact same amount of meat – 220 pounds of meat consumed per year.

• Vegetarian: And if the calories from meat are shifted over to nuts, beans and lentils for a vegetarian diet with the same caloric intake, the emissions drop to 1.03 tons CO2e/year.

The jump in emissions between the Standard American Diet and the High Beef Diet (a full ton of CO2e) is startling and highlights the disproportionate impact of eating beef. Eliminating beef reduces emissions more than removing the rest of the meat (fish, chicken, pork) from your diet. But the additional shift removing (or significantly reducing) the remaining meats & dairy is also important.

An action for this week

Eat no beef and less meat.

For those of us concerned about climate change, the need to act is clear. Global emissions are the result of a series of choices by billions of people. We can choose to act differently and reduce the emissions we cause. It doesn’t take new laws or government mandates to change our behavior, but it absolutely does require intentional action on our part.

Changing our diet takes effort, discipline and a solid commitment. Next week we’ll use our diet to explore how to change behaviors. I can personally attest to multiple times when I tried to adjust my diet and within a few weeks found myself following my original patterns and behaviors instead of the new diet. Understanding some behavioral psychology will help us change and keep our new diet (and return to it when we falter).

If you are a quantitative thinker, a good first step is to understand your current diet. Use the spreadsheet presented earlier to calculate the emissions from your diet.

And if you are not into measurement and quantification - the rule of thumb is easy: Eat less meat and no beef. (And, yes, this extends into eliminating or significantly reducing dairy also.)

Jim

Every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote for the kind of world you want.

Anna Lappé

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Want more information on emissions and diet?

If you want to find estimates of the emissions caused by specific food choices, a good source is the database of Food Impacts on the Environment for Linking to Diets (FIELD) compiled by food type, and assigned to the food commodities in the Food Commodity Intake Database (FCID) available at https://css.umich.edu/page/datafield.

A good metadata study on source of emissions for food can be found in Poore, J. and T. Nemecek. 2018. “Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science. 1 June 2018 Vol 360, issue 6392; pp 987-992. The paper is behind paywall at https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaq0216, and a pre publication PDF not behind a paywall is available at https://josephpoore.com/Science%20360%206392%20987%20-%20Accepted%20Manuscript.pdf

Household consumption directly and indirectly accounts for 70% of global emissions. Our daily decisions—what we buy, how we travel, what we eat, and how we heat and cool our homes—are levers with direct power to create change.

To better understand these emissions, the University of Michigan breaks down the carbon footprint of a typical US household into five primary categories:

1. Transportation: Emissions from our vehicles and other travel.

2. Home: Emissions from heating, cooling, and electricity use.

3. Goods: Emissions associated with the production and disposal of physical items we purchase.

4. Services: Emissions caused by services we use — from healthcare to finance to education.

5. Food: Emissions from our diet — from farm to table.

I recommend estimating your own carbon footprint at a household level. A good tool for your use is the University of California, Berkeley Cool Climate calculator. For air travel, a specialized tool from MyClimate is appropriate. I will be presenting a custom application to estimate the emissions from your diet when we discuss food choices in the next post.

My Household Emissions

Over the last eight years, my wife Celeste and I have worked to cut our own emissions. For the sake of simplicity and method limitations, I do not include the goods and services we use beyond our diet, our car manufacture (life cycle), and our home construction. I have calculated our emissions as accurately as I can for six of those eight years. The overall picture shows a reduction from 2018 on the right to 2025 on the left.

Our journey demonstrates that personal actions can cause real, measurable reductions. Here are some of the specific actions we’ve taken:

• Solar Panel Installation (2020): This required a significant upfront capital investment and drastically reduced the emissions from our electricity use. The panels generate clean power, and the monthly savings provided a payback period of about 11 years, making it a financial win also.

• Dietary Shift (2020 & 2025): We shifted to a mostly vegetarian diet in 2020 and eliminated most of the remaining meat and dairy in 2025— and we no longer consume any beef. This change requires a commitment but is less expensive than our previous eating habits, providing a substantial cut in our food-related carbon footprint with a modest reduction in cost.

• Electric Vehicle (EV) Purchase (2020): Buying an EV meant a cleaner choice for our transportation. We now use it as our primary car and for longer road trips, significantly reducing the gasoline we burn.

• Home Envelope Improvements (2024-2025): We improved the insulation in our home’s knee walls and crawl space. Addressing air leaks and poorly insulated areas is a foundational, yet often overlooked, step that immediately makes our home more energy efficient and cheaper to heat and cool — reducing our emission.

• Heat Pump HVAC System (fall 2025): We installed a dual fuel heat-pump with natural gas as backup for the coldest days. Before this we relied on a furnace burning natural gas with two resistance space heaters for two rooms that had poor insulation. With the insulation upgrades, we also eliminated using the two resistance space heaters for the colder rooms since resistance heating is extremely inefficient. Installing a heat pump HVAC system required more capital than simply replacing our old HVAC system in-kind, and I do not anticipate that the reduction in our natural gas bill will pay off the additional cost.

Each of these steps required planning, a commitment to make a different choice, and for one change a financial commitment to act according to our values even when it cost more. There is no single, one-size-fits-all recommendation here. Some changes save money, some changes cost more. Each change depends on your current living situation and practices. Every decision is personal, requiring personal change and resources.

In the following weeks, I’ll initially focus in on four areas where are actions are clearly in our control and significantly impact our emissions:

• Diet

• Car travel

• Air travel

• Home Energy Use

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Let’s discuss in the comments.

• Have you calculated your household or personal greenhouse gas emissions? If you have, what was your greatest insight from the results?

• What actions have you taken to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions? Did they cost more or less? What were your largest challenges to taking the action?

I hope you’ll continue with this dialogue as we dig into our own personal choices and the emissions we cause—and which actions can meaningfully reduce our emissions.

Jim

“Efforts by households to reduce pollution and waste, and to consume with prudence, are creating a new culture. The mere fact that personal, family and community habits are changing is contributing to greater concern about the unfulfilled responsibilities of the political sectors and indignation at the lack of interest shown by the powerful. Let us realize, then, that even though this does not immediately produce a notable effect from the quantitative standpoint, we are helping to bring about large processes of transformation rising from deep within society.”

Pope Francis. 2023. Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum.

My path to reduce my own carbon footprint spans years – across my education, my career, and my post-career. After getting a Masters of Science in environmental geochemistry, I spent 29 years investigating and cleaning up contamination from past industrial operations. In almost all of these cleanup projects, the corporations I counseled had stopped discharging waste to the environment years earlier and my involvement was determining where the contaminants had gotten to and how to clean them up. These contaminants included previously common industrial cleaners like trichloroethene (TCE), chlorinated industrial products and pesticide intermediaries, chlorinated dioxins and furans as well as petroleum products and metals. We now understand that these chemicals are toxic to humans and negatively impact wildlife. And we started managing these chemicals more carefully decades ago after new laws were signed into law.

Climate change is fundamentally a different problem.

Both the industrial cleanup operations and climate change are caused by the discharge of waste into the environment. The two main waste products that cause climate change are emissions into the atmosphere of

• carbon dioxide (CO₂) from burning fossil fuels like gasoline, jet fuel, natural gas and coal and

• methane (CH₄) from natural gas leaks, landfill vents, and cow burps.

Yet even now, decades after understanding the risk from climate change, the United States continues to discharge both carbon dioxide and methane at even greater rates. We did not stop the discharge, we increased it. And, unlike the industrial spills I worked on, emissions of carbon dioxide and methane are clearly linked to our household purchase decisions – my decisions and your decisions.

So thirteen years ago, after cleaning up contaminated groundwater, soils and sediments for three decades, I changed my focus to attempt to have an impact on our greenhouse gas emissions. I have not been very successful. Total US emissions have not decreased, and global emissions continue to rise. When I started, I did not understand the critical importance of my own actions - to reduce emissions, send a market signal and set social norms for acceptable behavior. I will continue to advocate for improved laws and regulations that nudge or require businesses to lower the emissions from their operations and require different actions by you and me. But I have realized that climate change is also a problem of individual will – a problem caused by the decisions that you and I make. A critical step is to understand that each of us can change our behavior now, without any new law. And it is hard to pass laws to demand behaviors we are not willing to change on our own.

Household purchase decisions provide the market demand for 70% of greenhouse gas emissions. Changing our purchase decisions can change our emissions. Our choices matter, and our current collective choices are not aligned with the reality of the issue we face in climate change.

Subscribe to this blog (at no cost) to join a dialogue exploring how our actions can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Personal action will not replace the need for good laws and regulations. But one lesson I’ve learned is that getting laws passed through Congress can take lifetimes - time we do not have to reduce emissions. After a decade exploring better laws and regulations, and seeing some laws passed and then weakened, I am convinced that those of us who are concerned about climate change need to both continue pushing for good laws while simultaneously controlling the one area fully in our control - our own actions.

According to Yale and George Mason University, over half of the U.S. population is alarmed or concerned about climate change, yet our collective actions don’t reflect this understanding. Assuming that our individual choices don’t matter, or that governments and corporations must act first ignores our own agency and the power of individual actions.

Switching to a diet that eliminates beef and reduces other meats can cut over 1 ton of CO₂e per year from an individual’s emissions—a massive, meaningful reduction. Yet while 54% of Americans are alarmed or concerned about climate change, only 5% of Americans identify as vegetarian or vegan. Similarly, personal transportation is a major contributor to our carbon footprints, but the sales of electric vehicles (EVs) have only reached 8% of new car sales with hybrid vehicles representing another 10% to 12%. The gap between our belief about climate change and our actions is significant.

This is an invitation to explore our agency.

This blog will be a dialogue to address the root causes of climate change by exploring one question: How can we meaningfully cut the emissions we cause through our energy use and our purchases? How can we work with the only one area we fully control - our own actions? And why is this so important beyond the emissions I reduce?

What to Expect From This Dialogue

• Focus on Impactful Action: The average U.S. household has a carbon footprint of around 48 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂e) per year. Future posts will not overwhelm you with a long list of minor adjustments. Instead, they will focus on a handful of high-impact areas where our actions can cut fractions of or whole tons of CO₂e per year —the changes that truly matter and that are required to lower the US per capita emissions.

• Real-World Insights: The blog will talk with friends and readers who have already taken these steps. You will learn what they’ve learned, how the transition went for them, and how they overcame obstacles.

• A Deep Dive into the ‘Why’: Along the way, I’ll dive into the details—including numbers, graphs, and the occasional bit of chemistry—to understand the science behind our choices. For example, early on we’ll explore why shifting your diet is so impactful, and the importance of the difference between the digestive systems in cows as compared to pigs or chickens.

• Behavior Change: Changing our behavior takes effort. Our dialogue will cover what it takes to form new habits and successfully integrate these intentional changes into your daily routines. I will include concrete suggestions to help make these behavior changes stick and feel comfortable.

• Secondary Outcomes: Aside from simply reducing my emissions, our individual actions also influence markets for lower emissions options and also shift social norms that are linked to other people’s actions.

It is time to align our actions with our beliefs and reclaim our power to effect change.

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Engage in the dialogue in the comments as we explore how to act consistent with our values and our concern about climate change.

Jim Tolbert

Good people will do what they find honorable to do, even if it requires hard work; they’ll do it even if it causes them injury; they’ll do it even if it will bring danger. Again, they won’t do what they find base, even if it brings wealth, pleasure, or power. Nothing will deter them from what is honorable, and nothing will lure them into what is base.

Seneca, Moral Letters. 76.18