Open Climate - What Can I Do?

This is a collection of blogs and resources about what individuals can do about climate change.

Most of my work and collection focus on adaptation.
This collection is more focused on mitigation.

My list

This list is what I summarized in class for years. It is focused on reducing emissions. It does not change. They were originally developed in blogs on Wunderground.com. The blogs from an archive are linked below. The internal links no longer work, but the discussion is still ok.

All of these are given more detail and scientific foundation in Project Drawdown, linked below.

Efficiency: Energy, Water, Materials
Food: What you eat
Alternative Energy
Waste Management (see Garbage, Garbage, Garbage below)
Behavior, Conservation and Reduced Use
Fuel-Waste Management
Forestry Management (think yards, gardens, communities)
Soil Management (think yards, gardens, communities)

I, also, recommend

Vote
Participate in local government and school board, speak, join committees, run for election
Make changes to your own business
Work to make your work place more climate friendly.

Garbage, Garbage, Garbage (from a song by Pete Seeger)

My friend Natasha Andronova would open her climate change talks with a big pile of garbage and say that the pile represented energy use and carbon dioxide. It is true, all of the garbage we create, especially plastic garbage, is part of emissions. Reducing garbage is a big deal. Recycling is, as practiced, not very effective. Here is a list from Western Disposal on reducing garbage.

Think Reusable: Carry a refillable water bottle and coffee mug. Use real dishes instead of disposal ones.
Ditch Single-Use: Skip condiment packets, straws, coffee pods, and plastic wraps. Bring your own containers for leftovers.
Choose Recycled Content: Buy products with recycled packaging and encourage stores to do the same.
Cut Plastic: Avoid gel pods and pre-packed produce. Use reusable produce bags and shop in bulk.
Reduce Food Waste: Plan meals, buy only what you need, and donate extras to food banks.
Borrow or Rent: Use libraries, car shares, and rent tools instead of buying.
Fix What You Can: Learn basic repairs. Look or and attend u-fix-it clinics.
Repurpose Items: Reuse jars, boxes, towels, and worn clothes for household and creative projects.
Buy Second-Hand: Shop thrift stores, garage sales, and consignment shops.
Donate Goods: Give gently used items to thrift shops and organizations that resell (e.g. Goodwill, Salvation Army, many local thrift shops.)

Project Drawdown is the best resource I know to decide effective personal and local efforts to reduce emissions.

Project Drawdown
- They have a guide for employees in an organization.
- They have an online course.
- They have an explorer where you can browse the effectiveness of solutions.
- They have a partnership with Super High Initiative for Fixing Tomorrow (SHIFT).

Billions of small decisions got us to where we are at with the climate. Billions of small decisions will help in the solutions. The solutions are harder because they require us to fight against the natural tendency to fragment; we have to organize towards a purpose. This list from psychologist Barry Schwartz is a good guide on decision making ¹.

Key points:

Pay attention to purpose. Before weighing pros and cons, ask “What is this decision really for?” Thinking about purpose—whether it’s family, growth, service, or meaning—clarifies which options matter most.
Resist the urge to quantify. As Barry says, “Quantification has its place. Pretending that you have solved a problem by putting a number on it is not gonna get you to the right place.”
Accept trade-offs. Every choice means giving something up. Wise decision-making is about being clear-eyed about those opportunity costs, not pretending they don’t exist.
Reject the myth of the “perfect” decision. Aim for “right enough,” not “perfect.” There’s no such thing as a perfect choice—and that’s okay.
Match effort to importance. Not every decision deserves equal attention. Save your energy for the ones that really matter.

Some argue that small decisions will never scale up, and that they do no matter. We do need to scale up, but saying little things don’t matter is how we got here.

This BBC story talks about the power of our decisions.