We have enjoyed our collective ignorance for long enough. Many of us can agree that caring about the environment is overdue as the Earth’s life has now been proven to be finite, thanks to humans and our unethical choices.
We are running out of time and the Earth is dying at an alarming rate. We need to take a stand now more than ever in regards to stopping (never mind reversing) climate change. Although this is now common knowledge, many individuals still do not want to change their lifestyles in order to do their part in helping save our home.
This may be partly due to extremists who stand on the front line of climate change activism that leave a bad taste in your mouth. This inevitably will put a lot of people off, understandably. Although this isn’t an effective way to get productive attention, can you really blame them?
Luckily, we can make a lot of huge changes as a whole if we all made a few small changes as individuals. You don’t have to go 100% zero waste or vegan to do your part. There is a surprising amount of easy things that can go a long way in regards to reducing your carbon footprint, which is why I am writing this article for you.
Sustainability doesn’t have to be as hard as you may think and doing something is better than doing nothing! In this article I will be answering the question ‘what is a carbon footprint?’, and providing 5 minimal effort approaches to reducing your footprint! Let’s take a look, shall we?
What is a carbon footprint?
Before we go any further, let’s looks at what is a carbon footprint. A quick Google search will tell you that the leading cause of climate change is the abundant amount of carbon dioxide floating around in our air, which is suffocating our atmosphere.
This increases the greenhouse effect that has been happening for years but has only gained serious media attention in recent dates. Essentially, the greenhouse effect is the suns energy getting trapped in our atmosphere, whereas it would usually reflect off the Earth’s surface and travel back into space.
In return, this warms the Earth significantly and is slowly killing off ecosystems, both above the land and under the sea, across the globe.
A carbon footprint is the total carbon/greenhouse gas emissions that are caused by an individual, service, organization, product, place, or event. Sadly, the way humans have been living for a long time has been doing nothing but damage to our climates. Our oceans warming, our sea levels are rising, our ecosystems and vital organisms are dying off. As utterly devastating as this is, there are easy ways you can help to reduce your footprint as an individual. I feel we are responsible and have a duty to make changes where we can.
However, many people do not see it this way and don’t want to make all kinds of big changes. If you are one of these people then don’t worry, you don’t have to totally change your lifestyle or completely devote yourself in the same way that climate change activists on social media platforms have. Let’s look at 5 easy ways to make the Earth a greener place!
Little things you can do that will make a big difference:
1. Mindful purchasing
Learn about ethical purchasing and do a little bit of research into the brands you currently support. You will likely find the brands you are purchasing from have a lot to do with your footprint. Not to mention, there are likely many alternatives to the brands you already use that will help you in reducing your footprint significantly.
For example, swap out fast fashion for thrifting or try out ethical cola brands instead of supporting a brand like Coca-Cola. Much of the power lies within the purchaser. It doesn’t take too much time or effort to look into the footprint of companies you already support.
When you are supporting a company like Coca-Cola, remember that you are a contributor to their devastatingly large carbon footprint. Seek out brands that are actively striving for sustainability!
2. Refuse, reduce, reuse, rot, and recycle!
The 5 R’s explained in short.
Refuse: Refuse unethical products by planning ahead or refusing on the spot. Eg, refuse to buy a plastic bottle of water when you know you will be home in 20 minutes and plan ahead next time by bringing your own water in a reusable bottle.
Reduce: Try not to create unnecessary waste if you don’t have to. Eg, Reducing your food waste can be done by buying less at the shops so less food goes to waste and composting what you don’t use so that nutrients go back into the Earth and aren’t wasted.
Reuse: Make an active effort to reuse material or a product instead of throwing it away. You can also buy products that are reusable instead of single-use materials/products. Eg, bring your own bags to the shops instead of getting plastic bags every time you go shopping.
Rot: Rid of your kitchen/garden scraps mindfully! Eg, learn how to compost and start right away! Your leftover bits are too valuable to go into the landfill.
Recycle: This may be an obvious one, but keep an eye out when you are shopping and only buy recyclable items when you can. Do some research as to what you can and cannot recycle in your area to ensure you are ridding of your materials correctly and responsibly.
Even if you do one out of these 5 R’s, you are doing great! As I said, something is always better than nothing!
3. Make the switch with renewable energy
Reduce your footprint by getting your energy from a renewable source! If you are in an area where this is an option, this is a super-easy way to be more green! Getting your household energy sustainably and from a renewable grid will help the Earth by supporting reliable and sustainable power supplies.
Outside of your home, using renewable energy also provides fuel diversity. It will lower the risk of fuel spills and reduce the need for imported fuels. This also helps to conserve a nation’s natural resources. Not to mention certain unsustainable energy industries (*cough* oil companies *cough*) also bomb countries that are rich in resources in order to conserve their own supply.
Sucking the Earth of its resources is unethical in the name of nature, however, bombing poor countries filled with innocent people to steal their natural resources is extremely unethical in the name of humanity! Whether you decide to get solar panels installed on your house or start to ride your bike to work some days, any changes are good changes!
4. Eat more plants.
Although many individuals could use this advice in regards to health, this tip can also be applied when discussing green living! Unfortunately, animal agriculture is an enormous cause of the greenhouse effect.
An alarming amount of resources like food, water, land, etc, go toward aminal agriculture, making it completely unsustainable. Although most mass crops of any kind do their damage, going on a plant-based diet will significantly decrease your footprint.
Try to eat local and support small farms where you can to avoid supporting mass crops that also do their fair amount of damage. Eating more plants is definitely worth the switch! I am not saying you have to go on a strict vegan diet, all I am saying is reducing your consumption of animal bi-products (even a little bit) will decrease your footprint a lot!
5. Plant some hemp.
You have probably heard of the quote ‘Save the earth, plant a tree!’ but did you know that hemp can do pretty much everything trees can do, only better? Hemp has been proven to be more sustainable and more helpful to climate change than trees.
Please note I am not saying we should not be planting trees… Of course, we should be! Please, plant a tree or two if you can as it is super important as well! However, to be truly sustainable, we should be planting both. Although, I believe we should priorities planting hemp over trees. Here is a little list of a few reasons why hemp is so sustainable:
- Hemp is zero waste meaning 100% of the plant matter gets put to use, unlike most crops.
- Hemp decreases carbon emissions. For every 1 ton of hemp produced, 1.63 tons of carbon is absorbed from the air and taken out of the atmosphere! This means hemp can suck out more carbon from the air than trees can.
- Hemp rejuvenates soil, sucking toxic metals from the ground, reducing soil erosion, and fighting against pesticides. Additionally, planting hemp between plant crops can also put nutrients back into the soil that was sucked out by the previous crop. This could help us make some plant crops (that are usually unsustainable) totally sustainable!
- Many of us know that bamboo is the fasted growing plant, but did you know hemp is the runner up? The fact that hemp can do everything it can whilst growing at such a fast rate shows we need to be planting more hemp.
- Hemp needs very little water to grow! It also needs very little nutrients to work with in order to grow. Many crops require a lot of water and nutrients to thrive and leave the ground with little to no nutrients. Hemp, on the other hand, needs little water/nutrients and leaves the soil richer in nutrients than before it was planted.
So, how can you help in this area? You can either plant hemp yourself, or purchase hemp products as this supports the hemp industry and pushes for sustainable farming. As I said above in the mindful purchasing section, the power is in the purchaser!
Hemp can produce loads of different products that can be applied to many lifestyles. These products range from clothing, food/drinks, plastics, CBD, fuel, paper, ink, detergents, etc. Hemp can single-handedly produce a whopping 25,000+ products! That being said, if you cannot plant some hemp yourself, check out the hemp industry and swap out some common products for some hemp ones.
Final thoughts:
The above text is simply a few suggestions I can give you, however, there is an abundant amount of information available on hundreds of easy ways to decrease your carbon footprint with little effort from hemp, to climate change, to carbon calculation…
Sustainability is key and should be incorporated where possible. I really want to stress that you do not have to do everything in this article to do your part. In fact, even educating yourself is a great start! The first step that humanity must take to create a green future is awareness. To get my final point across, I will leave you with a quote that sums up my point of view as a whole.
‘‘We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly.’’ – Anne Marie Bonneau
