My wife and I are committed to helping, but measuring is difficult now that we moved from a home with solar panels to a retirement community (that works on sustainability itself).
We are vegan/vegetarians. We gave up flying about eight years ago (June 2018).
We have heavily donated to The Nature Conservancy's NC Peatland Restoration work as a form of truly offsetting our lifetime carbon footprint. Commercial carbon offsets have a serious credibility problem, but the work TNC is doing is believable. We attended a lecture by the lead researcher in the field, read research papers, and visited the sites. TNC is not trying to sell their work as offsets per se, so we use the figures they calculated to estimate how much our donations have contributed to carbon reduction. We believe that we are making significant progress on offsetting our past emissions.
I’d be interested in who you consider a lead scientist in the field for offsets and sequestration credits. I plan to do a post on that later on, and I am looking for good sources.
Thanks Brett. Along with engaging our members of Congress (with help from Citizens' Climate Lobby), our actions can speak as loud as our words. Actions to reduce emissions impact not only our emissions, but markets for low emissions goods & services, social norms around low emissions actions, and even political will as members of Congress take note on their constituents acting according to their values.
we produce more energy than we use, even charging the EV. We are also committed to a plant-based diet. Living our values feels great, but certainly wish I could be more effective in engaging folks in conversation and attracting them to good information like this. I don’t give up even after many years because that isn’t an option. My husband thinks people are uncomfortable talking about this subject, even those who are concerned, because they know it requires change and they don’t want to change. I’ve given up trying to understand the resistance of good people and just keep trying to reach out.
Thanks for all you do Kay. It is interesting, I also find some people who are very concerned about climate change and active in some climate advocacy to be uncomfortable talking about or just owning their emissions. Our emissions are not caused by a single action that we can change today - they are integrated into so many elements of our life style and choices. It is not possible to just change and hit 0 emissions tomorrow - it takes thinking through and modifying small behaviors - some for lower cost, some for higher cost - some that you might want to do anyway, and some that you might not do except to reduce emissions. And it isn't a bright line - either I'm emitting or I am not. Maybe, at some level, people know they are emitting. Anyway, in this series I won't try to lay on guilt as much as provide information, talk about behavior change, and hopefully help people that are concerned about climate change live according to their values.
Hey Jim, Our household is tracking quite similarly to yours. 2021: PHEV that we now use predominantly for longer trips where DCFC is not available. 2022: 10kW rooftop solar array. 2024: BEV that is now our primary vehicle. 2025: 15kW battery that syncs with our panels and generator, and would minimize our propane usage should we have future extended outages (like Helene). Aside from the generator, we’re fully electric in our home.
Diet-wise, our protein is largely poultry and fish, with some dairy and very infrequent beef. We also aim to eat all that we purchase to avoid food decomposition and resultant methane generation. We also grow our own tomatoes for a tiny bit of local.
Overall, we’ve made decent progress, and we’re always looking for additional opportunities for improvement. I figure your Substack will provide related ideas.
Great progress Chris - thanks for living out your values. You’re ahead of me in one area - we still have a natural gas hot water heater. Just tackling things sequentially one step at a time.
Practical actions like these not only reduce our carbon footprint significantly, but also serve to reduce the hopelessness that sets in when we believe that there is nothing that we can do that will make a difference.
What a wonderful problem to come up against. 70% of emissions are driven by household purchase decisions, so if we could eliminate 70% of our emissions, I’d be thrilled. But this is about starting with the one thing in our full control - our personal choices. A critical place to start.
My wife and I are committed to helping, but measuring is difficult now that we moved from a home with solar panels to a retirement community (that works on sustainability itself).
We are vegan/vegetarians. We gave up flying about eight years ago (June 2018).
We have heavily donated to The Nature Conservancy's NC Peatland Restoration work as a form of truly offsetting our lifetime carbon footprint. Commercial carbon offsets have a serious credibility problem, but the work TNC is doing is believable. We attended a lecture by the lead researcher in the field, read research papers, and visited the sites. TNC is not trying to sell their work as offsets per se, so we use the figures they calculated to estimate how much our donations have contributed to carbon reduction. We believe that we are making significant progress on offsetting our past emissions.
I’d be interested in who you consider a lead scientist in the field for offsets and sequestration credits. I plan to do a post on that later on, and I am looking for good sources.
Thanks for the great writing and highlighting these important climate-friendly lifestyle decisions we all can make Jim!
Thanks Brett. Along with engaging our members of Congress (with help from Citizens' Climate Lobby), our actions can speak as loud as our words. Actions to reduce emissions impact not only our emissions, but markets for low emissions goods & services, social norms around low emissions actions, and even political will as members of Congress take note on their constituents acting according to their values.
we produce more energy than we use, even charging the EV. We are also committed to a plant-based diet. Living our values feels great, but certainly wish I could be more effective in engaging folks in conversation and attracting them to good information like this. I don’t give up even after many years because that isn’t an option. My husband thinks people are uncomfortable talking about this subject, even those who are concerned, because they know it requires change and they don’t want to change. I’ve given up trying to understand the resistance of good people and just keep trying to reach out.
Thanks for all you do Kay. It is interesting, I also find some people who are very concerned about climate change and active in some climate advocacy to be uncomfortable talking about or just owning their emissions. Our emissions are not caused by a single action that we can change today - they are integrated into so many elements of our life style and choices. It is not possible to just change and hit 0 emissions tomorrow - it takes thinking through and modifying small behaviors - some for lower cost, some for higher cost - some that you might want to do anyway, and some that you might not do except to reduce emissions. And it isn't a bright line - either I'm emitting or I am not. Maybe, at some level, people know they are emitting. Anyway, in this series I won't try to lay on guilt as much as provide information, talk about behavior change, and hopefully help people that are concerned about climate change live according to their values.
Hey Jim, Our household is tracking quite similarly to yours. 2021: PHEV that we now use predominantly for longer trips where DCFC is not available. 2022: 10kW rooftop solar array. 2024: BEV that is now our primary vehicle. 2025: 15kW battery that syncs with our panels and generator, and would minimize our propane usage should we have future extended outages (like Helene). Aside from the generator, we’re fully electric in our home.
Diet-wise, our protein is largely poultry and fish, with some dairy and very infrequent beef. We also aim to eat all that we purchase to avoid food decomposition and resultant methane generation. We also grow our own tomatoes for a tiny bit of local.
Overall, we’ve made decent progress, and we’re always looking for additional opportunities for improvement. I figure your Substack will provide related ideas.
Great progress Chris - thanks for living out your values. You’re ahead of me in one area - we still have a natural gas hot water heater. Just tackling things sequentially one step at a time.
Practical actions like these not only reduce our carbon footprint significantly, but also serve to reduce the hopelessness that sets in when we believe that there is nothing that we can do that will make a difference.
What a wonderful problem to come up against. 70% of emissions are driven by household purchase decisions, so if we could eliminate 70% of our emissions, I’d be thrilled. But this is about starting with the one thing in our full control - our personal choices. A critical place to start.