This is great, you guys! It’s important enough that the WP didn’t bury it behind a paywall
10 steps you can take to lower your carbon footprint
Here’s the thing: Small changes alone won’t save our planet. To keep the Earth from warming above the critical 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) limit, climate action needs to happen at an institutional level. The Washington Post has built a tracker to keep you up to date on all of President’s Biden’s environmental actions.
But that doesn’t mean you should feel helpless, or that your actions aren’t worthwhile. Taking steps to lower your own carbon footprint may help ease your climate anxiety by giving you back some power — and even the smallest of actions will contribute to keeping our planet habitable.
With that in mind, here are 10 places to start.
Let’s see them
- Create less food waste (tell us how this works at big climate conferences)
- Ditch your grass (not a problem in liberal infested big cities)
- Save coral reefs by packing smartly for your beach vacation (this is environmental, in terms of using environmentally friendly sunscreens)
- Shop sustainably by buying less (piss off)
- Protect our forests (no houses for you Warmists)
- Trade in for an electric car (because the middle and lower classes can totally afford this. Say, has the WP replaced all their vehicles with EVs?)
- Weatherize your home (these people)
- Learn about the link between climate change and racial equity (good grief. It’s a cult)
- Consider carbon offsets (like paying a speeding ticket for your bad behavior)
- Pass it on (annoy the shit out of your friends, family, coworkers, people you don’t know)
Let’s go back to the EV on
One of the most powerful individual actions people can take against climate change is to change the way they get around.
New electric vehicles can be expensive — even the most affordable have a suggested sale price between $30,000 and $40,000. But as more car manufacturers start producing EVs (General Motors has even said it will only make EVs by 2035), the cost of these cars is expected to come down. EVs also tend to have lower fuel and maintenance costs than gas-powered cars, making them cheaper over the course of their lifetimes than combustion engine vehicles, according to recent research from MIT.
Again, the vast majority of people cannot afford that price range, and do not want a 6, 7, or 8 year loan for it. Especially not when it will drop in value 52% (on average) after 3 years.
Electric vehicle purchases also qualify for federal tax credits of up to $7,500. Depending on where you live, your city or state might also provide additional financial incentives to go electric. The Energy Department maintains a full list of rebates, tax credits and other programs offered in each state, and more are expected to become available as President Biden moves to expand the nation’s electric vehicle fleet.
It’s a one time credit that, in most cases, doesn’t actually save you $7,500. Furthermore, again, it won’t help reduce the purchase cost of the vehicle. It’s just scamming people. GM’s going to find themselves in a bit of financial trouble when they’ve reduced the pool of buying customers to those making $200k and up.
I absotively, posilutely approve of the article as you have cited it: it takes away the excuses of the warmunists who visit this fine site!
The Hirsute One has already told us that he’s too old, and won’t buy another vehicle, but let’s face it: no less an organ than The Washington Post has told him that he has no excuse: as long as he drives his gas guzzling 1971 Cadillac, he’s killing Mother Gaia!
The esteemed Mr Dowd, who has eschewed telling us what he has done, due to the potential for identifying himself, could certainly add insulation and better windows without it identifying him.
This one pisses me off: carbon offsets do nothing to reduce carbon emissions, but rather transfer money from those who are already generating lower emissions, to excuse those who talk the talk, but don’t walk the walk.
How about 11 – Erect a clothesline, and use your electric dryer less. Oh, wait, that one isn’t in there. I did it, and one thing we love: it makes the bedding smell wonderful. But the urbanites who write for The Washington Post would never have the room to do this, even if they so desired, and the thought almost surely never entered their pointy little heads.
Teach the average new fossil fuel car costs a bit more (before tax incentives) than a new Tesla Mod 3
The average price of a new car is now over 47000 dollars and appear to be still climbing every month
Of course the freedom truck protest didn’t help the auto w orders lost 150 million and about the same for factories
What I NEVER hear from the EV fanatics is how we are to switch the transportation energy supply from gasoline to electric without building new power plants and transmission towers, which the Sierra Club will fight.
I suspect they can’t answer, because they have no clues.
I admit I don’t have ALL the clues, but I have enough to recognize Used Food when I see it.
The Ford Lightning F150 will start at about 40k 7000$ less than the average new car sold in the USA
Lol
No Dana I will not be buying a new one but if I was in the market I would get the lighning it. I actually have zero plans of buying any new vehicle probably for the rest of my life!
The Hirsute One speaks apples and oranges.
and
Citing the bare-bones electric vehicle costs, and then comparing them to the average gasoline powered vehicle is not legitimate. If you compare bare bones to bare bones, you find that the gasoline powered vehicles are much less expensive. MSRP for a 2022 Kia Rio is a whopping $16,250, while the more popular Sorento starts at $29,590.
The 2022 Ford F-150 Supercrew cab starts at $39,045, while the Lightning starts at $39,974.
And the weather will stay the same…
By all means, live, as an individual, the way you believe you should, to relieve global warming or climate change or disruption or crisis or whatever it is we’re calling it this year. If you can convince your friends and neighbors to do the same, great! But don’t add step #11, Have .gov force all the little people to give more money and cede more power and relinquish more liberties and lower their quality of life so that you can make believe you’re fixing the weather. Just leave the rest of us out of it, we have real problems we’re working on. Thanks.
Amen, brother.
Government subsidies
GAME OVER
I love the “ditch your grass” idea. It’s as if liberals in cities and suburbs in california don’t know that it grows naturally here in Virginia. I didn’t plant it and I don’t water it.