Four things you can do

Some suggestions on how to achieve a low-carbon lifestyle

From giving up the occasional burger to forgoing air travel forever, there are dozens of different things you can do to lower your individual carbon footprint.

Some you can start today. Others will take some planning. All of them will spark conversation with family and friends, which, as we’re learning, is one of the best things we can do to act on climate change.

1. WATCH WHAT YOU EAT

Meat-lovers will have a hard time hearing this: Cutting beef from your diet is one of the quickest ways to lower your carbon footprint. The simplest explanation for this is that it takes a lot of energy to get that steak on your plate.

Cows require great swaths of land, either for grazing or for growing the grains they eat. Converting forests and other natural areas to pasture or crop fields releases carbon into the atmosphere and, conversely, reforesting old grazing areas creates a carbon sink. Producing the fertilizer that’s needed for growing cattle feed creates massive amounts of carbon emissions. And during digestion, cows burp methane (it is also released from manure), which is a greenhouse gas.

According to the World Resources Institute (WRI), producing a portion of beef emits 20 times more greenhouse gases than producing an equal-size portion of plant-based protein, such as chickpeas and lentils.

The WRI has also calculated that if all the people in the world who over-consume protein — there are 2 billion of us and the average daily protein requirement is 51 grams — cut their daily meat and dairy habits by 40 per cent, an area of land two times the size of India wouldn’t be used for food production. Reforesting that land would remove 168 billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere.

So, even just switching from a traditional diet to a flexitarianor Mediterranean-style diet, in which animal products take a back seat, can have a significant impact on your carbon footprint.

If you need further proof, consider a 2018 study that analyzed data from almost 40,000 farms in 119 countries to measure the environmental impact of most foods eaten around the world.

The findings convinced its lead author, Joseph Poore of the University of Oxford, to adopt a vegan diet, something he says is the single biggest thing we can do to reduce our environmental impact on the planet. “There would be a 30per-cent reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions if we all changed to vegan diets,” he says. “That’s huge. Eighteen months into the research I stopped eating animal products. Cheese was especially difficult to give up.”

2. ENERGY CHOICES

For many of us, the biggest portion of our climate footprint comes from fuels we burn to drive our cars, heat our homes and power our appliances.

Most of us can’t easily run out to purchase an electric vehicle or stock up on new windows for an old house.

But it’s always worth hearing the numbers behind making greener energy choices. It may inspire future change or spur a down payment on an emissions-free car.

According to a 2017 study, which used data from more than 39 other peer-reviewed research papers, here is a sample of some carbon-reducing choices you can make at home:

Living car-free saves 2.4 tons of greenhouse gases per year

Switching from a gas car to a hybrid car saves 0.4 tons a year

Washing clothes in cold water saves 0.247 tons a year

Hang-drying clothes instead of using an electric dryer saves 0.21 tons a year

Upgrading your lightbulbs saves 0.10 tons a year

QUICK FACT: The researchers found having one fewer child has the biggest impact on an individual’s lifetime carbon output. That very personal choice will save nearly 60 tons of CO2 equivalent each year.

3. MAKE CHANGE WITH YOUR MONEY

Whether you have thousands of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars in your bank account, how you choose to invest those funds can help fight climate change.

The idea behind responsible investment is that you opt for money-making funds that also fit with your personal convictions, with regard to social or environmental issues, such as gender equity or the environment.

Although it may seem like a strategy for only the wealthy, Dustyn Lanz, CEO of the Responsible Investment Association (RIA), says anyone with some savings can make a choice on how to best invest their money.

“You can invest in a responsible mutual fund for $500 or less with an online platform,” he says, adding that talking to a financial adviser is another good place to start.

The RIA certifies financial advisers in how to create responsible investment portfolios.

Of the several different responsible investment strategies, Lanz says the following two examples give a sense of how the approach works.

In the first, responsible investors explicitly exclude industries from their portfolios that Lanz says are “deemed unsustainable or in conflict with your beliefs; these are often what we call sin stocks, like weapons, tobacco, coal or fossil fuels.”

In the second, investors use positive screening to choose to either fund companies that match their ideals or those that are considered leaders in their industry on social or environmental reform.

4. REDUCE AIR TRAVEL

The greenhouse gas emissions that come from jetting across the country are supersize compared to those that come from highway driving.

Airplanes use an astounding amount of jet fuel, especially during take-off and landing. At cruising altitude, they emit particulates and other compounds and gases that also contribute to a warming climate.

It can be tricky to pinpoint the exact amount of greenhouse gases an airplane trip creates; there are many variables, including the size, age and type of aircraft, as well as the carbon-burning activities associated with running an airport, where again size will matter.

But a typical round-trip flight across the ocean from Toronto to London costs about 2 tons of greenhouse gases per passenger.

A 2016 study put these numbers in a different way: one round-trip transatlantic flight melts 3 square metres of Arctic sea ice.