Reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions

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Get a home energy audit

Take advantage of the free home energy audits offered by many utilities. Then put the recommendations into practice. Simple measures, such as installing a programmable thermostat to replace your old dial unit or sealing and insulating heating and cooling ducts, can each reduce a typical family’s carbon dioxide emissions by about 5 percent. Replacing single-paned windows with dual-paned windows and installing insulated doors will also greatly reduce heat loss from your home.

Use Renewable energy

More than half the electricity in the United States comes from polluting coal-fired power plants. And power plants are the single largest source of heat-trapping gas. Fortunately, the use of alternative energy sources, such as solar, wind, geothermal, and hydro energy, is gaining increased support worldwide. The wind energy produced in Denmark, for example, provides about 10 percent of the country’s total energy needs. These methods of energy production emit no greenhouse gases once they are up and running. In most states, alternatives are available for customers who want to purchase green power (50 to 100 percent renewable energy). For a complete list of green power options, visit the US Department of Energy’s Buying Clean Electricity web page.

Purchase Solar Panels

With the federal and state governments offering residential renewable energy incentives, solar energy is more accessible than ever before, not to mention an excellent long-term investment.

Buy Green Tags

If your energy company doesn’t offer green power, you can offset your carbon dioxide emissions by purchasing “green tags,” or compensatory energy credits that add renewable power to the grid equal to the power you use. Numerous green tag programs exist and can be readily be found on the internet.

Purchase Carbon offsets

The principle of carbon offset is fairly simple: you decide that you don’t want to be responsible for accelerating climate change, and you’ve already made efforts to reduce your carbon dioxide emissions, so you decide to pay someone else to further reduce your net emissions by planting trees or by taking up low-carbon technologies. Every unit of carbon that is absorbed by trees—or not emitted due to your funding of renewable energy deployment—offsets the emissions from your fossil fuel use. In many cases, funding of renewable energy, energy efficiency, or tree planting—particularly in developing nations—can be a relatively cheap way of making an individual “carbon neutral”.

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