Running out of safe places to live and work amid global warming

Bob Sheak, Sept 15, 2023

Introduction

This post includes sections on (1) how more and more places across the earth are experiencing unprecedented high and rising temperature reducing their habitableness; (2) a review of the evidence documenting warming; (3) the effects of global warming on people, communities, and everyone; and (4) what may be done to curtail global warming.

I draw significantly in the first sections of this post on the analysis by Jake Bittle in his book, The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration (publ. 2023) as well as other sources

Getting hotter in more and more places

“The largest driver of voluntary migration in the coming decades” will be heat, according to Bittle’s research. “Even with drastic action on emissions, temperatures almost everywhere on Earth will continue to rise over the coming century, creating profound changes in seasonal climates on every continent. These changes will be most drastic in polar regions, which are warming several times faster than the global average – permafrost melt in Canada and Alaska has already caused massive land collapses, and heat wave in Siberia during the summer of 2021 caused wildfires on land that was once too cold to burn” (p. 267).

Bittle continues. “Even in temperate regions, the changes will be tangible. The moderate temperature zone that scientists call ‘human climate niche,’ which in the United States now stretches from South Dakota to the Sunbelt, will shift northward so that by 2070 its northern edge reaches into Canada and its southern edge around Kentucky. The areas below that niche will get hotter with every passing year, and as time goes on, they will start to seem more dangerous and less attractive.” The Sweltering South will get even hotter, the temperate parts of the country will no longer feel as temperate, and the frigid reaches of the North will feel a bit more hospitable. Those changes might not feel like much from year to year, but over the decades they will add up.”

The rising temperatures will be a major factor in where people live, along with the personal resources and/or benefits from government housing programs. If they have the means or government support, they will have adaptive options. Otherwise, they will be stuck in place or only able to move to places that will soon be affected by rising levels of heat. Meanwhile, the rising temperatures in the U.S. and globally will force people with options to move whether they want to or not. Without resources or government support, many will remain in increasingly intolerably and lethally hot environments at home, on the job, virtually everywhere in a given area or region.  

Various indications that the earth is becoming increasingly hot

#1 – Global average temperatures are breaking records

Scott Dance, a reporter for The Washington Post covering extreme weather news and the intersections between weather, climate, society and the environment, reports on scientific findings that “the earth is its hottest in thousands of years” and how we know this (https://washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/07/08/earth-hottest-years-thousands-climate). Droughts at lasting longer

“Observations from both satellites and the Earth’s surface are indisputable — the planet has warmed rapidly over the past 44 years. As far back as 1850, data from weather stations all over the globe make clear the Earth’s average temperature has been rising.

“In recent days, as the Earth has reached its highest average temperatures in recorded history, scientists have made a bolder claim: It may well be warmer than any time in the last 125,000 years.”

#2 – Droughts are affecting more parts of the planet. According to Michael T. Klare, “The drought afflicting the American West has now persisted for more than two decades, leading scientists to label it a ‘megadrought’ exceeding all recorded regional dry spells in breadth and severity. As of August 2021, 99 percent of the United States west of the Rockies was in drought, something for which there is no modern precedent. The recent record heat waves in the region have only emphasized this grim reality.” The effects are worldwide.”

#3 – Michael Klare also points out that the use of fossil fuels continues to increase.

“…the climate crisis is also reflected in “the refusal to alter agricultural and industrial methods of production which only aggravate or—in the case of fossil-fuel consumption—simply cause the crisis, is growing ever more obvious. At the top of any list would be a continuing reliance on oil, coal, and natural gas, the leading sources of the greenhouse gases (GHGs) now overheating our atmosphere and oceans. Despite all the scientific evidence linking fossil-fuel combustion to global warming and the promises of governing elites to reduce the consumption of those fuels—for example, under the Paris Agreement of 2015—their use continues to grow.”

#4 – Klare: “today’s powerful elites are choosing to perpetuate practices known to accelerate climate change and global devastation. Among the most egregious, the decision of top executives of the ExxonMobil Corporation—the world’s largest and wealthiest privately-owned oil company—to continue pumping oil and gas for endless decades after their scientists warned them about the risks of global warming and affirmed that Exxon’s operations would only amplify them.”

#5 – Klare: “The fires in Canada: As of August 2, months after they first erupted into flame, there were still 225 major uncontrolled wildfires and another 430 under some degree of control but still burning across the country. At one point, the figure was more than 1,000 fires! To date, they have burned some 32.4 million acres of Canadian woodland, or 50,625 square miles—an area the size of the state of Alabama.”

#6 – Julia Conley reports on August 4 2023 on scientists being alarmed “over the unprecedented ocean heat,” particularly since “policymakers in the top fossil fuel emissions-producing countries show no sign of ending planet-heating oil and gas extraction” (https://commondreams.org/news/ocean-temperaturews-breaks-record). Here’s one of her facts.

“The European Union’s climate agency, Copernicus Climate Change Service, reported this week that the average daily global ocean surface temperature across the planet reached 20.96°C (69.7°F), breaking the record of 20.95°C that was previously set in 2016.”

#7 – A Critical ocean current system closer to collapse

Brett Wilkins, staff writers for Common Dreams, reports on a study warning that we are closer than previously thought to a collapse of a critical ocean current system (https://commondreams.org/news/amoc-current-collapse).

“The system of Atlantic Ocean currents that drive warm water from the tropics toward Europe is at risk of collapsing in the coming decades, an analysis of 150 years of temperature data published Tuesday concluded.”

#8 – Chris Mooney reports “Scientists working in one of the world’s fastest-warming places [the Arctic] found that rapidly retreating glaciers are triggering the release into the atmosphere of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that causes global temperatures to rise (https://washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/07/06/arctic-glacier-melt-methane-global-temperatures)/

#9 – Forests are going from being “sinks” to “emitters”

David Wallace-Wells, author and journalist, considers this shocking reality (https://nytimes.com/2023/09/06/opinion/columnists/forest-fires-climate-change.html). Here’s some of what he writes.

“The Canadian wildfires have this year burned a land area larger than 104 of the world’s 195 countries. The carbon dioxide released by them so far is estimated to be nearly 1.5 billion tons — more than twice as much as Canada releases through transportation, electricity generation, heavy industry, construction and agriculture combined. In fact, it is more than the total emissions of more than 100 of the world’s countries — also combined.

“But what is perhaps most striking about this year’s fires is that despite their scale, they are merely a continuation of a dangerous trend: Every year since 2001, Canada’s forests have emitted more carbon than they’ve absorbed. That is the central finding of a distressing analysis published last month by Barry Saxifrage in Canada’s National Observer, ominously headlined “Our forests have reached a tipping point.”

“In fact, Saxifrage suggests, the tipping point was passed two decades ago, when the country’s vast boreal forests, long a reliable ‘sink’ for carbon, became instead a carbon ‘source.’ In the 2000s, the effect was relatively small. But so far in the 2020s, Canada’s forests have raised the country’s total emissions by 50 percent.”

#10 – The number of climate disasters is increasing

The following research findings come from the National Centers for Invironmental Information (https://ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions).

“The U.S. has sustained 371 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including CPI adjustment to 2023). The total cost of these 371 events exceeds $2.615 trillion.

2010s (2010-2019)

“In 2023 (as of September 11), there have been 23 confirmed weather/climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each to affect United States. These events included 2 flooding events, 18 severe storm events, 1 tropical cyclone event, 1 wildfire event, and 1 winter storm event. Overall, these events resulted in the deaths of 253 people and had significant economic effects on the areas impacted. The 1980–2022 annual average is 8.1 events (CPI-adjusted); the annual average for the most recent 5 years (2018–2022) is 18.0 events (CPI-adjusted).”

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What to expect as global warming intensifies and expands

#1 – Inland cities will suffer

Bittle points out, “Many of the places that will be hit hardest by this overall temperature increase are inland cities. “This is largely owing to a phenomenon known as the heat island effect: materials like asphalt, concrete, and metal trap heat as it pours down during the day, and at night these same materials release the stored-up heat back into the air, robbing residents of the cool reprieve that comes after sundown in rural areas. At the same time, many urban neighborhoods lack trees and foliage that soak up humidity and provide crucial shade cover” (p. 268).

#2 – Communities with fewer resources will suffer

Bittle continues: “…the burden of his temperature shift will fall hardest on those with fewest resources. Research has shown that the wealthiest neighborhoods in any given city tend to be the ones with the least exposure to extreme heat, thanks to lush tree cover and access to public parks. Wealthier households are also much more likely to have air-conditioning, which during hot spells can mean the difference between life and death.” (pp. 268-269)

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Some states withhold cooling aid for the poor as heat gets deadlier

Thomas Frank reports on states that are withholding cooling aid for the poor as heat gets deadlier (https://politico.com/news/2023/09/06/states-withhold-cooling-aid-for-the-poor-as-heat-gets-deadlier-p-00111977).

“Many states refuse to use money from a federal program to help low-income people pay for cooling bills or repairs.

“More than 30 million low-income households that are eligible for federal funding to defray the cost of air conditioning have not received any money from a government program that was created to protect vulnerable people from dangerous temperatures, an E&E News analysis shows.

“The dearth of cooling assistance going to households nationwide reflects shortcomings in U.S. and state policies to address the dangers of extreme heat as it kills more Americans than other weather-related disasters, according to some experts. It comes during a summer of unmatched climate catastrophes, including the hottest month on record.

“The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, distributes roughly $4 billion a year to states to help residents pay for air conditioning and heating and equipment repairs.

“But in 16 states, including some with significant heat risk, not a single household received money to pay cooling costs from 2001 through 2021, according to E&E News’ analysis of federal records. The program, run by the Department of Health and Human Services, has focused instead on providing heating assistance. Every state helps eligible residents pay their winter heating bills, compared to just 24 states that paid for air conditioning costs in 2021.

“‘The programs haven’t caught up with the change in climate,’ said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. ‘We’re now at a period where not only are we having expensive winters, but we’re also having record-breaking heat.’

“The result is a dramatic imbalance between cold- and hot-weather assistance as global temperatures soar because of greenhouse gases from cars, power plants and industrial facilities. An average of 5.3 million U.S. households a year got heating assistance from 2001 through 2021. The average number of households getting cooling assistance was 635,000.”

The Biden administration urges changes

“In July 2022, the Biden administration took the unusual step of urging states to use LIHEAP for cooling. An HHS memo warned about the lethality of extreme heat and listed ways LIHEAP money could protect people.

“We’ve heard more about the need for cooling from the Biden administration than we have from past administrations,” said Meltzer of the utility affordability coalition. Katrina Metzler is the executive director of the National Energy and Utility Affordability Coalition. She ran Ohio’s LIHEAP-funded weatherization program from 2009 to 2016, said state officials face a dilemma if they set aside LIHEAP money for summer cooling in October.”

“Former President Donald Trump proposed eliminating LIHEAP each year he was in office. Congress rejected the idea and funded the program every year at normal amounts.”

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#3 – Demand for air-conditioning will go up —

As temperatures rise, demand for air-conditioning will go up as will the prices for air conditioning. In a growing number of situations, electric bill will become “unaffordable for many low-income families.” (p. 269).

#4 – Industries will be negatively affected. Bittle writes that from agriculture to livestock to energy to tourism, business and corporate investments will migrate to avoid the heat (p. 270). For example, “According to one estimate, average annual yields for corn and soybeans in the South could fall as much 20 percent over the next decade, leading to losses of more than half a trillion dollars” (p. 271)

#5 – Threats to people working outdoors

“More than fifteen million workers in the United States have jobs [in agriculture, mining, and construction] that,” Bittle points out, “require them to spend some amount of time outside, and many of them are migrant laborers….”

Migrant workers “clean up climate disasters.

Migrant workers who come from countries undergoing high levels of heat are being used in the U.S. to “clean up climate disasters.” On Democracy Now, host Amy Goodman provides an overview of a program focused on forced immigrant labor ((https://democracynow.org/2023/9/4/the-great_escape_saket_soni).

“As extreme weather disasters intensify, the workers who are hired by corporations to clean up after hurricanes, floods, blizzards and wildfires are increasingly on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

“For Labor Day 2023, we,” Goodman and the Democracy Now staff, devoted part of the program to an interview with author and organizer Saket Soni. His book, The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America, focuses on hundreds of Indian workers who were brought to the United States with false promises and subjected to grueling working conditions at a shipyard in Mississippi. When one of those workers called Soni in 2006 for help, it set off an extraordinary chain of events that led to their escape from the work camp and eventually focused national attention on the plight of the workers.

“As disasters have grown, this workforce has grown. And these workers do all this without legal protections, without legal status,” says Soni, the director of Resilience Force, a nonprofit that advocates for immigrant workers who help rebuild communities after climate disasters.”

Migrant children work brutal jobs

Hannah Dreier reports on the exploitation of children (https://nytimes.com/2023/02/25/us/unaccompanied-migrant-child-workers-exploitation.html).

“Arriving in record numbers, they’re ending up in dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws — including in factories that make products for well-known brands like Cheetos and Fruit of the Loom.

Hannah Dreier traveled to Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia for this story and spoke to more than 100 migrant child workers in 20 states. hannah.dreier@nytimes @hannahdreier

Examples

Cristian works a construction job instead of going to school. He is 14.

Carolina packages Cheerios at night in a factory. She is 15.

Wander starts looking for day-labor jobs before sunrise. He is 13.

It was almost midnight in Grand Rapids, Mich., but inside the factory everything was bright. A conveyor belt carried bags of Cheerios past a cluster of young workers. One was 15-year-old Carolina Yoc, who came to the United States on her own last year to live with a relative she had never met.

“About every 10 seconds, she stuffed a sealed plastic bag of cereal into a passing yellow carton. It could be dangerous work, with fast-moving pulleys and gears that had torn off fingers and ripped open a woman’s scalp.

“The factory was full of underage workers like Carolina, who had crossed the Southern border by themselves and were now spending late hours bent over hazardous machinery, in violation of child labor laws. At nearby plants, other children were tending giant ovens to make Chewy and Nature Valley granola bars and packing bags of Lucky Charms and Cheetos — all of them working for the processing giant Hearthside Food Solutions, which would ship these products around the country.”

“These workers are part of a new economy of exploitation: Migrant children, who have been coming into the United States without their parents in record numbers, are ending up in some of the most punishing jobs in the country, a New York Times investigation found. This shadow work force extends across industries in every state, flouting child labor laws that have been in place for nearly a century.

“Twelve-year-old roofers in Florida and Tennessee. Underage slaughterhouse workers in Delaware, Mississippi and North Carolina. Children sawing planks of wood on overnight shifts in South Dakota.

“Largely from Central America, the children are driven by economic desperation that was worsened by the pandemic. This labor force has been slowly growing for almost a decade, but it has exploded since 2021, while the systems meant to protect children have broken down.

“The Times spoke with more than 100 migrant child workers in 20 states who described jobs that were grinding them into exhaustion, and fears that they had become trapped in circumstances they never could have imagined. The Times examination also drew on court and inspection records and interviews with hundreds of lawyers, social workers, educators and law enforcement officials.”

“The number of unaccompanied minors entering the United States climbed to a high of 130,000 last year — three times what it was five years earlier — and this summer is expected to bring another wave.

“These are not children who have stolen into the country undetected. The federal government knows they are in the United States, and the Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for ensuring sponsors will support them and protect them from trafficking or exploitation.

“But as more and more children have arrived, the Biden White House has ramped up demands on staffers to move the children quickly out of shelters and release them to adults. Caseworkers say they rush through vetting sponsors.

“While H.H.S. checks on all minors by calling them a month after they begin living with their sponsors, data obtained by The Times showed that over the last two years, the agency could not reach more than 85,000 children. Overall, the agency lost immediate contact with a third of migrant children.

“Far from home, many of these children are under intense pressure to earn money. They send cash back to their families while often being in debt to their sponsors for smuggling fees, rent and living expenses.”

“In interviews with more than 60 caseworkers, most independently estimated that about two-thirds of all unaccompanied migrant children ended up working full time.”

#6 – Increase in number of refugees

Bittle writes:

“With no other options, hundreds of thousands of refugees from Central America made the thousand-mile trek north to the United States….” “Climate change is not the only reason that refugees are fleeing these countries for the United States, but a succession of droughts and devastating storms has pushed far more of them northward than would have moved otherwise” (p. 277).

In Europe, an “influx of a million refugees to the continent in 2015 set off a chain of events that fractured the EU, leading to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the bloc and the rise of far-right parties in several countries

#7 -The problem of global warming is particularly severe in Asia

Bill McKibben, author and activist, writes on new data that substantiates this point that fossil fuel emissions are lethal, particularly on Asians (https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/fossil-fuel-kills-asians-in-particular).

“When we talk about ‘humanity,’ we are, statistically, mostly talking about Asia—just under 60% of our sisters and brothers live there. But they don’t live anywhere near as long as they should.

“New data last week from University of Chicago researchers showed that across South Asia, air pollution—mostly from burning fossil fuels—is robbing people of five years of life on average. Five years! If you live in Delhi, the most polluted big city on the planet, that number is an unimaginable 11.9 years. If you would have lived to 70, you died at 58. Thank about that. Across the region, “particulate pollution levels are currently more than 50 percent higher than at the start of the century and now overshadow” other health risks. Every breath that people take is killing them, every hour of every day.

“Bottom of Form

But those other health risks are also rising fast,” according to McKibben, “spurred on by the climate disasters that also come with burning fossil fuel. A remarkable report in today’s Washington Post (which has been doing a lot of remarkable climate coverage lately) was headlined. Climate-linked ills threaten humanity, and for a while was the lead story in the paper. It looked at Pakistan, home to last year’s record-breaking flood and a series of devastating heatwaves, and found almost unimaginable levels of misery.”

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#8 – In Africa

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reports on how “the Central African Republic to Somalia and Sudan, fragile states suffer more from floods, droughts, storms and other climate-related shocks than other countries, when they have contributed the least to climate change (https://imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/30/africas-fragile-states-are-greatest-climate-casualties). The report continues: “Each year, three times more people are affected by natural disasters in fragile states than in other countries. Disasters in fragile states displace more than twice the share of the population in other countries.

“And temperatures in fragile states are already higher than in other countries because of their geographical location. By 2040, fragile states could face 61 days a year of temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius on average—four times more than other countries. Extreme heat, along with the more frequent extreme weather events that come with it, will endanger human health and hurt productivity and jobs in key sectors such as agriculture and construction.”

#9 – In Europe

Ally Wybrew reports on the torrential rain, flash floods and raging wildfires that have devastated Europe this summer (https://euronews.com/green/2023/08/08/torrential-rain-flash-floods-and-raging-wilefires-europes-extreme-summer). Here are Wybrew’s main points.

“Few European countries have escaped the extreme weather spreading throughout the continent. Wildfires have raged across much of Western Europe and the Mediterranean, while flooding and rainstorms have plagued central European countries including Croatia, Austria and the Czech Republic.

“A combination of climate change and the global weather phenomenon El Niño are believed to be contributing to the extreme weather events.

“El Niño occurs when ocean waters become much warmer than usual. According to the WMO, it’s very likely to continue at this strength or higher until the end of 2023.”

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What to do?

Jake Bittle offers ideas on how to help individuals and households on the domestic front. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions as fast as possible and “ramp up our investment in post-disaster aid and climate adaptation.” Give more money to FEMA’s disaster-relief unit. Invest “in more and better funded home buyouts.” Provide “more generous moving stipends to those who relocate without the benefit of an insurance payout” (p. 280).

Such assistance may help some people to escape or adapt, at least temporarily, to the current heating of the planet from fossil fuels and the dire effects on the oceans and more and more of the earth’s land and forests. But the future looks grim in the absence of effective international efforts to reduce carbon emissions and the emissions from other greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, however, there are things people and groups can do.

Collective actions

Julia Conley reports on actions scheduled around the world for Sept. 15-17 to end fossil fuels (https://commondreams.org/news/400-actions-march-climate). There were 400 “actions, marches, rallies, and other events have already been registered around the world. The article was published on Sept. 11, 2023.

“More than 780 organizations have endorsed the day of action—up from 500 less than a week ago—and millions of participants are expected to rally from Cape Town, South Africa to Manila, Philippines and Lahore, Pakistan, as well as in dozens of cities and towns across the United States, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in history.

“The protests are scheduled just before the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit, taking place on September 20 in New York, where groups including the NAACP, Sierra Club, and Sunrise Movement are supporting the March to End Fossil Fuels on September 17.

“More than 10,000 people are expected to march in New York to demand that U.S. President Joe Biden end federal approvals for new fossil fuel projects like the Willow drilling project in Alaska and phase out oil and gas drilling in federal lands and waters; declare a climate emergency to unlock resources to accelerate the transition to renewable energy; and provide a just transition that creates millions of green jobs while supporting people who have worked in the fossil fuel industry.”

Recommended individual actions

The United Nations offers the following list of “actions for a healthy planet” (https://un/org/en/actnow/ten-actions). It notes first that the U.S. is a leading source of the accelerating global warming – and much of what it recommends applies to households with resources who tend to be the largest sources of greenhouse gases.

Greenhouse gas emissions per person vary greatly among countries. In the United States of America, emissions in 2020 (the latest available data) were 14.6 tons of CO2-equivalent per person – more than double the global average of 6.3 tons, and six times the 2.4 tons per person in India. Here are some actions for how individuals, particularly those with resources, can reduce their impact on the environment. It has particular relevance for the U.S.

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Save energy at home

Much of our electricity and heat are powered by coal, oil and gas. Use less energy by reducing your heating and cooling use, switching to LED light bulbs and energy-efficient electric appliances, washing your laundry with cold water, or hanging things to dry instead of using a dryer. Improving your home’s energy efficiency, through better insulation for instance, or replacing your oil or gas furnace with an electric heat pump can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 900 kilograms of CO2e per year.

Change your home’s source of energy

Ask your utility company if your home energy comes from oil, coal or gas. If possible, see if you can switch to renewable sources such as wind or solar. Or install solar panels on your roof to generate energy for your home. Switching your home from oil, gas or coal-powered energy to renewable sources of energy, such as wind or solar, can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 1.5 tons of CO2e per year. 

Walk, bike or take public transport

The world’s roadways are clogged with vehicles, most of them burning diesel or gasoline. Walking or riding a bike instead of driving will reduce greenhouse gas emissions — and help your health and fitness. For longer distances, consider taking a train or bus. And carpool whenever possible. Living car-free can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 2 tons of CO2e per year compared to a lifestyle using a car. 

Switch to an electric vehicle

If you plan to buy a car, consider going electric, with more and cheaper models coming on the market. In many countries, electric cars help reduce air pollution and cause significantly fewer greenhouse gas emissions than gas or diesel-powered vehicles. But many electric cars still run on electricity produced from fossil fuels, and the batteries and engines require rare minerals which often come with high environmental and social costs. Switching from a gasoline or diesel-powered car to an electric vehicle can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 2 tons of CO2e per year. A hybrid vehicle can save you up to 700 kilograms of CO2e per year.

Consider your travel

Airplanes burn large amounts of fossil fuels, producing significant greenhouse gas emissions. That makes taking fewer flights one of the fastest ways to reduce your environmental impact. When you can, meet virtually, take a train, or skip that long-distance trip altogether. Taking one less long-haul return flight can reduce your carbon footprint by up to almost 2 tons of CO2e. 

Reduce, reuse, repair and recycle

Electronics, clothes, plastics and other items we buy cause carbon emissions at each point in production, from the extraction of raw materials to manufacturing and transporting goods to market. To protect the climate, buy fewer things, shop second-hand, and repair what you can. Plastics alone generated 1.8 billion metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 – 3.4 per cent of the global total. Less than 10 per cent is recycled, and once plastic is discarded, it can linger for hundreds of years. Buying fewer new clothes – and other consumer goods – can also reduce your carbon footprint. Every kilogram of textiles produced generates about 17 kilograms of CO2e.

Eat more vegetables

Eating more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and less meat and dairy, can significantly lower your environmental impact. Producing plant-based foods generally results in fewer greenhouse gas emissions and requires less energy, land, and water. Shifting from a mixed to a vegetarian diet can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 500 kilograms of CO2e per year (or up to 900 kilograms for a vegan diet). 

Throw away less food

When you throw food away, you’re also wasting the resources and energy that were used to grow, produce, package, and transport it. And when food rots in a landfill, it produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. So purchase only what you need, use what you buy and compost any leftovers. Cutting your food waste can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 300 kilograms of CO2e per year.

Plant native species

If you have a garden or even just a plant or two outside your home, check for native species. Use a plant identification app to help. And then think about replacing non-natives, especially any considered invasive. Plants, animals and insects depend on each other. Most insects will not eat non-native plants, which means birds and other species lose a food source. Biodiversity suffers. Even a single tree or shrub can offer a refuge – just remember to skip insecticides and other chemicals.

Clean up your environment

Humans, animals and plants all suffer from land and water contaminated by improperly discarded garbage. Use what you need, and when you have to throw something out, dispose of it properly. Educate others to do the same, and participate in local clean-ups of parks, rivers, beaches and beyond. Every year, people throw out 2 billion tons of trash. About a third causes environment harms, from choking water supplies to poisoning soil.

Make your money count

Everything we spend money on affects the planet. You have the power to choose which goods and services you support. To reduce your environmental impact, choose products from companies who use resources responsibly and are committed to cutting their gas emissions and waste. If you have money that is being invested for you, through a pension fund for instance, it may be supporting fossil fuels or deforestation. Making sure your savings are invested in environmentally sustainable businesses can greatly reduce your carbon footprint.

Speak up

Speak up and get others to join in taking action. It’s one of the quickest and most effective ways to make a difference. Talk to your neighbors, colleagues, friends, and family. Let business owners know you support bold changes – from plastics-free products and packaging to zero-emissions vehicles. Appeal to local and world leaders to act now. Climate action is a task for all of us. And it concerns all of us. No one can do it all alone – but we can do it together.

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