Washington Post: "On Giving Tuesday, how to make small donations with big climate impact"
by Michael Coren
Give to the planet by giving to yourself
Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School, calculates that the most effective investment in the climate involves decarbonizing your home.
Some improvements, like sealing a leaky door to improve your energy efficiency, may only cost a few dollars. But many clean technologies, such as heat pumps and induction stoves, still carry a “green premium.” The up-front cost is higher than conventional technologies, even if operational costs are lower.
Installing those sorts of technologies before they become mainstream, Wagner argues, helps expand the market, puts downward pressure on their costs and edges your neighborhood closer to low or zero emissions.
Wagner just finished a multiyear odyssey retrofitting his 750-square-foot loft and helping to make his 200-year-old, seven-household co-op building more energy efficient. He finally sealed off the building’s gas line earlier this year after going all-electric.
“How do you spend your hundred bucks? How do you spend your thousand bucks?” he asked. “Spend it on overcoming this initial hurdle [of a green premium]. In this case, spending it on yourself might be the most philanthropic thing you can do.”
Quoted in: "On Giving Tuesday, how to make small donations with big climate impact" by Michael Coren, Washington Post Climate Coach (2 December 2025).
