How To Reduce Your Carbon Emissions

Generic principles

These priciples can be applied directly mostly at the household and organisation level.

To apply them at the government / administrative level, these principles can be translated to the introduction of regulations, taxes and tax breaks.

I highlighted those changes that have the biggest impact and are not philosophically controversial. As a rule of thumb, what can be applied at the individual level can also be applied at the organisational level, and some of the rules apply at the administrative level.

• do not directly use fossil fuels;

• shift the fossil fuels consumption to indirect usage: even though electric power is produced using fossil fules, later it will be easier to migrate off of fossil fuels if the population does not directly depend on them;

• do not use oil and gas derived products: plastic, chemical fertilizers, etc.;

• reduce electric energy consumption as much as possible;

• refrain from using services that depend directly on fossil fuels: public transportation on non-electrified routes, road freight transport, etc.;

• reduce consumption as much as possible: do not replace old objects because you got tired of them or they are out of fashion or because the new objects have more functions or have a higher performance, if you have no use for those new functions or for that increased performance;

• reduce the buying of products that were obtained by using a lot of energy: ciment, steels, products that were trasported over long distances;

• participate in the circular economy (reuse and recycle);

• promote reduced emissions by example and by voting with your wallet for products and services that meet this criterium.

Level: individual and household

1. drop natural gas for heating and cooking:_the more consumers go off natural gas grid the better, because the natural gas networks and their clients are a good reason for blackmailing politicians to issue tax breaks for gas extraction and transport network construction and expansion - if the population is locked in in gas consumption for heating and cooking, the distribution networks and production fields cannot be retired;

2. thermically isolate your home;

3. when outside temperature drops below -4˚C (39˚F) use infrared panels or floor heating or radiators or central heating (preferably a heat pump) on electrical power;

4. install in-line water heaters for each tap or shower head;

5. use cookers that have their own heat source, or induction cooking, or electric or microwave oven for cooking;

6. cook, do not order food, eat mostly raw food (about meat consumption 1, about meat consumption 2);

7. use the AC for heating, when outside temperature is higher than -4˚C (39˚F);

8. use led lighting; install motion sensors for lighting in passage ways and bathrooms; use high efficiency home appliances;

9. turn down the thermostat to 21˚C (70˚F) or lower during the winter and use thick clothes, buy think bed covers, that retain heat;

10. install window blinds that reflect light (metalic or white) for those summer days when you need to keep your home cool;

11. in summer, keep your windows open during the night, to cool your home, while during the day keep them shut so that the heat outside does not get inside;

12. set your AC to a higher temperature that is still bearable (27˚C / 80˚F) during summer;

13. use a fan to create air movement during the day and to allow your skin to cool down by perspiration;

14. thermically isolate your kitchen from the rest of your house, to prevent overheating your home while cooking;

15. keep a constant temperature in your home, even if it stays empty for a few hours: temperature fluctuation is more energy hungry than a stable temperature;

16. when you go on holiday in winter, set your thermostat at 4˚C and in summer leave the AC off;

17. install air refreshners with filters and heat recovery, so that you do not need to open window or door to get fresh air;

18. refrain from upgrading your electronic hardware: cellphone, laptop, telly (tv), router, refrigrator, washing machines, vacuum cleaner, etc.;

19. use the washing machine only when you have enough laundry to fully fill it;

20. use a pasive laundry dryer;

21. work from home, if you can (the less passengers a vechicle carries, the lighter it is and the less energy it consumes);

22. prefer electrical or mechanical power in your means of transportation:

    1. walk or use a bicycle or a small scooter;

    2. use a bicycle or an electrical scooter or electrical moped or motorcycle;

    3. use electric public transportation or an electric car;

    4. use a PHEV car or an ICE moped or an ICE motorcycle;

    5. use ICE public transportation;

    6. use your ICE car (do NOT use autogas (LPG) or biofuel);

    7. avoid air transport even when you go on holidays (the less passengers and baggages an aeroplane carries, the lighter it is and the less energy it consumes).

23. increase the pressure in your vehicle's tyres during summer: the higher the pressure, the lower the energy consumption; (during winter or rainy seasons it can be dangerous, because it decreases the tyres' adherence);

24. if you can, install solar panels and a household battery;

25. if you are building a new house and you can, use construction materials that were produced without producing a lot of carbon dioxide in the process, maybe that even consumed carbon dioxide: wood, reused plastics, hemp, etc.;

26. plant trees in your backyard and small and dense plants, that keep the soil moistured;

27. install automated irrigation in your backyard, to prevent the soil from overheating: high temperatures kill the fungi, which are in symbiosis with plants; the death of fungi cause the death of plants and desertification;

28. use locally grown produce or home made products or buy from nearby producers as often as possible;

29. choose hedgefunds or investors that do not invest your money in fossil fules;

30. do not use or invest in cryptocurrencies that use PoW: they use a lot of power;

31. make compost;

32. reduce as much as you can or get rid of single use plastics, use reusable bags and containers;

33. avoid plastic made objects and use objects made of alternative materials (steel sheets, glass, wood): buckets, basins, glasses and mugs, tooth brushes, etc.;

34. recycle: paper, cardboard, glass and metal and maybe even wood;

35. give away for reuse anything you do not need anymore and is in good condition: clothing and shoes, toys and games, electric and electronic devices, furniture, matresses, etc.;

36. fix broken objects;

37. try to produce as little rubbish as possible;

38. buy in bulk;

39. do not have many children (less than 3);

40. as a civil society, vote and do activism to the government to implement the policies described here;

41. convince and help others to implement this list.

Level: organisation

1. keep the zones that need a microclimate (e.g. cooled shelves in stores) at the lowest volume possible and thermically isolate them from the environment (with glass doors or windows);

2. buy from nearby providers;

3. get supply rarely and in large quantities, and for perishable products use mechanical or electrical transportation;

4. find couriers that can deliver by train on long distances and by electric transportation to you or your storage location;

5. use led lightning;

6. use biofuels if electrical freight transportation is not available to you;

7. allow and recommend your employees and contractors to work from home if possible;

8. select contractors and suppliers that respect the recommendations in this list;

9. buy green electric energy;

10. use induction cooking or special cooking hardware (HoReCa);

11. set the thermostat at 25˚C (77˚F) in the summer and 19˚C (66˚F) in the winter;

12. turn off the lights and computers during off-hours;

13. install solar pannels and UPSs, for your own use;

14. reduce paper usage in your organisation;

15. make your green practices public on your organisation's website and on your business cards;

16. own your externalities, even though they are not regulated by the government and you are not required or are not recommended to do it;

17. take measures to reduce the production of rubbish;

18. educate your employees and collaborators on how to reduce their own energy consumption.

Level: administration / government

1. STOP promoting false solutions like carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), or "clean gas", or "clean hydrogen" (aka "blue hydrogen").

2. criminalise science denial in mass-media and bribes for scientists given for lying about scientific results;

3. force local companies to own their externalities and tax imports from those that do not;

4. get rid of tax breaks for fossil fuels companies;

5. introduce a carbon tax;

6. stop all fossil fuel infrastructure projects: the expansion of the natural gas network, the building or expansion of airports, the prioritisation of building of motorways instead of railways;

7. stop tax breaks for the air transport industry;

8. stop all fossil fuel extraction projects;

9. offer tax breaks for green energy production projects: nuclear, geothermal, wind, solar and hidro;

10. offer tax breaks for energy storage projects;

11. offer financial incentives for thermal isolation of buildings;

12. offer financial support for local and long distance electric transport; both public and private;

13. expand the electrical grid network;

14. offer financial support for expanding the rapid charger network for cars and public and freight transportation and the aquisition of private chargers for households;

15. build the next generation digital public services;

16. create a legal framework and offer incentives for employers to let their employees to work from home;

17. establish a deadline for fossil fuels usage in the energy industry and in public transportation and freight;

18. create a medium speed railway network (<200 km/h or <160 mph; the energy efficiency drops at speeds over that limit because of air viscosity) with 4 rails (2 in each direction) that links all cities (not only those that are regional capitols);

19. create a secondary railway network with 2 rails (1 in each direction), perhaps with narrow gauge, that can link all cities with the nearby towns and villages, so that wherever you are, there could be a train station in a 10 km (6 mi) radius;

20. electrify all urban and periurban public transport and railway lines using overhead wires (catenaries);

21. create incentives for battery-based freight transport and long distance public transport;

22. create a legal framework to require carbon capture technology where this carbon is produced in large quantities: ciment, steel, aluminium production, etc.;

23. prevent and punish illegal logging, both at individual and company level;

24. create regulations for logging companies, so that they cannot cut old and healthy trees (>50 years old) and require them to plant trees of different species, in the areas they cut;

25. create a publicly owned company that accumulates losses, that does reforrestation;

26. create a nationwide irrigation network (including in forrests and pastures), that is automated in sections;

27. create forrest barriers around roads and motorways and railways;

28. establish an evaluation procedure for the country's agriculture fields needs in relation with the population number (at 150% of its needs), and recreate wilderness on the remaining area, either with forrests or with rich vegetation or swamps;

29. standardise containers (bottles, jars and containers) that require standard sizes and shapes for them, so that the containers can be washed and reused without the need to recycle them;

30. regulate composit materials and labels, such that labels can easily be removed and the containers can easily be decomposed at home into their component materials, that are recycleable;

31. require commercial operators that distribute and sell packaged products to have a feedback loop for the packaging towards commercial packaging processors, that clean the packaging (containers: bottles, jars, etc.) and are different operators than garbage collectors;

32. require compostable rubbish collection in cities, from apartment blocks, and establish the conditions in which the garbage collectors can collect this compost;

33. create a legal framework for commercial operators to collect and recycle construction rubbish;

34. nationalise all natural resources (parcels, fields, forrests, water springs, mineral resources, etc.) and lend them to citizens;

35. stop space exploration projects (Lunar mining, mission to Mars, etc.) or in search for new carbon mining fields (coal, oil and gas);

36. stop investing in wars for fossil fuel resources;

37. lower army's greenhouse gas emissions.