We asked people steeped in climate and renewable-energy issues how they reduced their personal carbon footprints
Optimize, insulate, electrify
Easily the most important single step my family took to reduce energy consumption was to optimize square feet, not maximize it, when deciding where we were going to live. That magic number will be different for different people. Ours is around 750 square feet, shared with two children and a dog, in the middle of everything. The more centrally located, the easier it is to cut another few square feet. Why make room for a washing machine, when you can drop off your laundry on the morning dog walk and return with your oat cappuccino? Living in New York like a New Yorker—without ever having to drive anywhere, for example—easily cuts personal carbon emissions by half or even two-thirds.Step two: Insulate and electrify everything. We cut the gas line almost as soon as we moved in. Hard to justify poisoning your children when induction stoves are fundamentally better products. We insulated everything we could, installed an efficient heat pump and put in solar-powered skylights to mimic the airflow of German passive houses. That, of course, points to the major challenge: It took us almost two years and over $100,000 to decarbonize our 200-year-old co-op. Everyone from contractors to bankers to regulators needs to climb the learning curve fast. That merits massive public investment, to say nothing of building much more of the kind of housing that allows young families to choose to live in cities in the first place.
In: “How I Cut My Use of Fossil Fuels: Tips From the Pros,” by Patricia Price, Wall Street Journal, 8 November 2021.