In fact, according to the EPA, replacing just one incandescent lightbulb in every American home would save enough energy to provide electricity to three million American homes. And when purchasing wood products, such as furniture or flooring, buy used goods or, failing that, wood certified to have been sustainably harvested. Confronting Climate Change Climate change is exacerbating many of the environment issues we currently face. Consume Less—The easiest way to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions is simply to buy less stuff. Falling birth rates in some developed and developing countries (a significant portion of which are due to government-imposed limits on the number of children a couple can have) have begun to reduce or reverse the population explosion. But should such individual and national efforts fail, there is another, potentially desperate solution: Experiment Earth—Climate change represents humanity's first planetwide experiment. At the same time, the costs of today’s clean energy technologies have never been lower. It’s clear the world is ready to act on climate in Paris. Climate change is both a global problem and a local problem, and its impacts have implications for and interact with nearly every sector of human activity, including energy and food production, water and other natural resources, human health, business and industrial activities, and, in turn, political stability and international security. Unplug—Believe it or not, U.S. citizens spend more money on electricity to power devices when off than when on. The climate challenge is more than any one government can solve alone. This is significant progress, but it is not enough to meet our long-term climate goals. Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to safer levels, supplying roughly half of the electricity, turning the lights off when you leave the office, 54 acres to sustain an average human being, China's Xi Outshines Trump as the World's Future Energy Leader, Fact or Fiction? In the 1990s, the best way to deal … To take but one example, efficient battery chargers could save more than one billion kilowatt-hours of electricity—$100 million at today's electricity prices—and thus prevent the release of more than one million metric tons of greenhouse gases. There are no perfect solutions for reducing dependence on fossil fuels (for example, carbon neutral biofuels can drive up the price of food and lead to forest destruction, and while nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gases, it does produce radioactive waste), but every bit counts. But it is clear that at least some form of geoengineering will likely be required: capturing carbon dioxide before it is released and storing it in some fashion, either deep beneath the earth, at the bottom of the ocean or in carbonate minerals. Think green when making purchases. climate change is one of the most important issues on the global political and economic agenda, yet it has taken at least 20 years to become an international priority. Climate economic studies convincingly show that one of the best investments to fix climate in the medium run is to invest heavily in green R&D. Choosing food items that balance nutrition, taste and ecological impact is no easy task. Coal is the substrate, supplying roughly half of the electricity used in the U.S. and nearly that much worldwide—a percentage that is likely to grow, according to the International Energy Agency. 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