The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS.org) released a study this past Monday on the importance of individual households in reducing carbon emissions. To date the environmental community has been inept at communicating the dire situation of climate change to the general population. The average person cannot conceptualize metric tons or parts per million of carbon dioxide. Identified as the “behavioral wedge”, our households can provide immediate reductions in carbon emissions with simple lifestyle changes. Renewable energy technologies along with cap and trade legislation provide an important step toward long-term solutions. However our daily actions can fill the gap NOW with our environmental challenges. U.S. consumers can reduce their emissions to the total output of France just by adopting “reasonably achievable emissions reduction” (RAER) actions. It is no surprise the actions that top the list. More on the paper here.
Did you see this?
Yesterday the Fed announced it would be injecting $3.4 billion (Dr. Evil smirk) into our decrepit energy infrastructure. Our electrical grid is as smart as a 5th grader (no offense 5th graders). It was the largest amount of stimulus money awarded in one day. Eric Schmidt was on Rachel Maddow’s show discussing the importance of smart grid technology. Google’s CEO stated, with a smarter grid individuals would be able to measure their consumption causing a reduction of their energy usage by 10%. Extrapolating that for the whole U.S., that would be like taking 16 million cars off the road. Wow, what an idea. Measure your energy to reduce it, who would have thought. You can find the whole interview here.
So while the senate squabbles over climate change, Obama reads his teleprompter in a solar field, and techies around the world create renewable energy, John and Jane need to be creating their household environmental policy around the dinner table.
- Joe
Tags: climate change, Green, lifestyle
