Carbon footprint
According to the free Carbon Footprint Calculator available at: http://www.nature.org/greenliving/carboncalculator/ an average American household produces 80 short tons of CO2 per year, whereas my household consisting of 3 people, resending in single family home in California produces 84 short tons of CO2 per year, which is not that bad comparing to the average across the U.S., but is a lot worse than the world average, which is only 17 short tons of CO2 per year.
Considering the situation, I would like to make a pledge on how I am intending on cutting CO2 produced by my family. It should all start from switching a large SUV to a mid-size, small, or even hybrid (electric car), which will cut carbon emissions of a family by at least 20%. Also, you can always use public transport for local trips that will cut emissions even more.
Second field of improvement should be energy efficiency of homes, which become popular and standard across the developed countries. Energy efficiency can be improved by installing new energy saving light bulbs, using energy star electrical appliances, using up-to-date cooling and heating systems, etc. Another step that can make things better is installing sun batteries on your rooftop, thus, consuming less energy produced by burning fossil oil-the main producer of CO2. All such steps will eventually cut the production of CO2.
I am using less water than usual, by washing all the dishes in the same water, washing floors, and the car when it is only needed. Collecting, then using rain water for watering plants, when it is needed can save energy. The use of water can be reduced by taking fewer baths, and taking shorter showers. Another point of interest might be a non-electric process of doing laundry. As of now, there is a technology on the market that does the cleaning of laundry by pressure, not by washing in electric washing machines. Afterwards, clean laundry can be dried in a natural way. I am also doing recycling, and I think that it should one of the major ways of dealing with CO2 production, as recycling not only saves trees from being cut down, but solves the question of disposing the materials, and, as we know, open air dumpsters are one of the biggest problems on our planet, due to the CO2 being emitted from the process of rotting.
There are a plenty of ways to conserve energy, thus, lower the production of CO2, which will result in not-so-rapid climate change around the globe.
