What can I do to make an impact on climate change?

In the past couple of years I’ve been lucky to climb to the top of Mt Kilimanjaro and dive underwater on the Great Barrier Reef.

What I didn’t expect was that both are being indelibly impacted by climate change. On Mt Kilimanjaro I saw a 10,000 year old glacier that may disappear within 30 years. At the Great Barrier Reef I was awe struck by the marine life, but came home to see the NY Times say it’s as if the reef is ‘ravaged by war’ and a study by the journal of Science that the expected annual bleaching to come from rising sea temperatures will kill the Reef in the same time frame.

I realized I have to do all I can to make a personal impact on climate change, but I didn’t know how. So here’s what I’m doing — and what you can do too.

Get educated

The most important thing you can do is learn about the issue. Here are a few resources that have helped me (Please comment with more suggestions and I’ll add them at the bottom).

• The NY Times Climate Change primer with 17 often asked questions with straightforward answers
• Read ‘The Sixth Extinction: An unnatural history’ by Elizabeth Kolbert
• Watch ‘Chasing Coral’ and ‘Chasing Ice’ on Netflix
• Sign up to 2 excellent email newsletters: NY Times Climate FWD and the Grist.org newsletter
• Follow everydayclimatechange on Instagram
• Check out Drawdown.org for a comprehensive list of 100 individual actions you can take to help the climate
• Use a Carbon Footprint Calculator and calculate your own footprint and see where you are damaging the environment (for most of us it’s primarily the source of power at home/work and what we use for transport)

Get Active: Make your vote, and your purchases, depend on climate change action

The NY Times climate change primer linked above says it best:

The single most important thing you can do as an individual is learn enough to make your vote about climate change. In the US, you can look up your representatives voting record at the League of Conservation Voters.Tell your representative why, tell your family and your friends.

You can also make an impact by making purchasing decisions based on climate change impact too, and don’t forget to tell corporates why you’re doing so. They’ll listen and they’ll follow the dollars. Below are a handful of examples of things you can do right now with your wallet to make a direct impact. I’ve done all of them in the past couple of weeks, and I’ve let the companies know why.

Other personal actions you can start making, today:

Change your household energy to renewable sources

There’s a range of renewable power options out there, so ask your electric company.

Arcadia Power has a brilliant model where you hook up your electric account, they provide renewable power (primarily wind) & apply an algorithm to save you money! Use my referral link here & get $25 off to change to wind power.

Fly less, and if you have to fly buy carbon offsets for your flights

FiveThirtyEight say ‘every time you fly, you trash the planet’. Every long haul flight you make is the equivalent of 1 year of driving a car! So where possible, avoid flights. When you have to fly:

• Fly direct - takeoffs/landings use more fuel so direct is better than stopovers.
• Donate to the Nature Conservancy carbon offset program using their simple calculator
• Look at the sustainability plans for the airlines you fly (the leaders I've seen: JetBlue, United, Delta)
• Fly economy, don’t check a bag — the plane will use less fuel the less space you take up

Do you really need a car these days?

Not everyone can get by without one, but it’s worth investigating. My personal travel is a mix of a bus to work, Lyft and the Ford GoBike program in San Francisco. If I bought a car it would be electric, but I’ve found it’s surprisingly easy (and cheap) to get by without one if you live in a city.

Eat less beef

This one is both good for your health AND the planet. The Atlantic says that if everyone in America stopped eating red meat “even if nothing about our energy infrastructure or transportation system changed — and even if people kept eating chicken and pork and eggs and cheese — this one dietary change could achieve somewhere between 46 and 74 percent of the reductions needed to meet the 2020 greenhouse-gas emission target.”

Cutting out red meat means you can get all the health benefits of the mediterranean diet, while also making a positive impact on the planet.

Make your investments Fossil Fuel Free

One of the best places you can make your dollars work for climate change is in your 401k and investment portfolio. The ‘Fossil Free Funds’ site is a really useful tool. Just insert the funds you currently invest in, and you’ll learn what % of that fund is directed towards supporting fossil fuels and carbon polluters.

Here is how I divested my 401K from fossil fuels in 3 easy steps.

Be aware that if you have your money with a large bank you might be supporting huge investments in Fossil Fuel industries — especially if you bank with JP Morgan Chase or Citibank. A great alternative I’m planning on opening a new bank account with is the fossil fuel free bank Aspiration.

You can also take a look at Green Bonds to make an investment that helps the environment, or as the NY Times says ‘cut carbon emissions while earning cash’.