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| Simone Noronha |
Walk the walk
If your goals for 2018 include getting more exercise, consider committing to walking or bicycling distances under a mile.
Roughly 20 percent of car trips in the United States fall into this category, and the average car produces 411 grams of carbon dioxide per mile. That’s the equivalent of the weight of a football or a can of soup.
Walking
that mile instead of driving not only cuts emissions but also
contributes to the 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity that the Centers for Disease Control recommends adults get each week.
Bicycling is about twice as fast as walking, so if you’re biking you
might want to commit to cycling distances under two miles. Want to track
your activity? Try downloading a fitness tracking app to your smartphone.
One economist caused a stir in a 2013 article
by suggesting that driving could account for fewer emissions than
walking because of the agricultural emissions that are generated while
producing the food that fuels the walking. But the author assumes that a
car gets 40 miles per gallon, not the 25 m.p.g. that is the current
United States average.
And
even if you drive a hybrid, it’s still worth it to walk. While the
author assumed that people would need to eat more to make up the extra
calories burned off while walking, Americans already eat more calories than we need. Walking is as much a doughnut offset as a carbon offset.
This
doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care about food-related emissions. Worldwide,
agriculture accounts for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
Luckily, we can help slash emissions — and save money — without
drastically altering our diets.
One way is to waste less food. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, about a third of the food produced worldwide never gets eaten.
Throughout the world, some of that waste happens during production and
distribution. But consumers and restaurants in North America throw away
almost 40 percent of available food.
Geremy Farr-Wharton, a researcher at the Queensland University of Technology, found that color-coding our refrigerator contents
(green for fresh produce, red for meat) can reduce food waste. There
are even refrigerator management apps like FridgePal and Best Before
that track the food in your fridge and when it will spoil. If apps
aren’t your thing, a weekly refrigerator check — preferably before
grocery shopping — can also help, as can monthly fridge eat-downs where
you spend the last few days of the month using up everything that’s left
in your fridge.
A number of businesses are also stepping up to cut waste on the production side by selling ugly produce.
Producers toss about half of all fruits and vegetables in the United
States, in part because they think we won’t buy “imperfect” produce that
fails to meet aesthetic standards. Businesses like Imperfect Produce hope to bridge that gap by selling ugly but otherwise normal produce at a discount of 30 to 50 percent.
There’s
some truth to the saying “What gets measured gets managed,” and
quantification has become something of a cultural obsession. Oroeco, an app available on both Android and iOS, takes that zeal and applies it to tracking personal carbon emissions.
Oroeco
helps quantify the carbon emissions associated with purchases,
investments, dietary choices and preferred modes of transport. It allows
users to set goals, track performance and even compare their
performance with friends. The app is still relatively new, and it isn’t
perfect, but it can be a useful tool to get you moving in the right
direction.
Other apps can help you lower your carbon footprint, too. My colleague Hiroko Tabuchi recently detailed the apps that she uses to stay aware of her personal contribution to global warming. The list includes the CO2 app
from the International Civil Aviation Organization that she uses to
track her greenhouse-gas emissions when she flies so she can invest in carbon offset credits. You can check out Hiroko’s full list here.
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