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Twenty-four ways you can help the planet, from how you wake yourself up in the morning to how you get drunk at night.

By Mick Dumke

April 17, 2008

These days the news about the environment always seems to be bad. In just the last few weeks we’ve heard that carbon dioxide emissions need to decrease by a radical 80 percent to avoid the worst predicted effects of climate change; President Bush has unilaterally weakened new federal rules on ozone, another greenhouse gas; and his administration has been sued for failing to protect polar bears, whose vulnerability is seen as a harbinger of global warming. It’s enough to mystify or overwhelm an ordinary citizen, even one who wants to help. And for many of us it raises questions about whether individual action really can make a difference.

Here’s the bad news: Experts agree that saving the planet will require major technological, political, and cultural shifts that mandate widespread, if not universal, participation. The little things that make us feel better about ourselves—any one of us turning off a light or recycling a newspaper or ponying up for organic produce—aren’t going to cut it. “We can’t solve this problem by buying a new green gadget at Target,” says Rebecca Stanfield, state director of Environment Illinois, a research and advocacy organization.

But Brian Urbaszewski, an air pollution specialist at the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago, says that doesn’t mean individual action can’t have an effect—if enough individuals act. Last summer, he notes, the Chicago area had eight days when ground-level ozone, the main component of smog, was dense enough to be officially dangerous, especially for seniors, children, and people with respiratory illnesses. In March the EPA toughened ozone standards based on new data; if those rules had been in place last summer, it would’ve been 18 days. Among the region’s biggest sources of the ingredients that form smog are coal-burning power plants, which provide about half of Illinois’ electricity.

“It seems trite, but in an area where you’ve got nine million people, if everyone turns out the lights, it has an impact,” Urbaszewski says. “The coal plants are still putting out thousands of tons of air pollution every year. If you can just shave that a little bit, it could help.” That’s because about 9 percent of all U.S. residential electricity is used for lighting, and that adds up to roughly 73 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. That’s more than all the trees in American urban areas absorb in a year.

Still, perhaps the most important single thing individuals can do is to press their elected officials to confront climate change aggressively by setting new standards and priorities—and especially to mandate ways to reduce the consumption of fossil fuel, which is responsible for about 80 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Kimberly Gray, director of the environmental sciences program at Northwestern University, points out that as painful as it may be, people are simply going to have to find ways to live with less. That, she says, could be what’s most productive about taking small steps to live greener on a day by day, household by household basis: they might get people thinking about, and even prepared for, the kind of massive cultural change they should be pushing their legislators to force.

“These little things will not add up to what is needed on national level,” Gray emphasizes. “But it is a start.”

In that spirit, here are a few suggestions collected from environmental policy makers, scientists, and activists on how to reduce consumption, conserve resources, and get ready for the revolution.

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