Kick the Habit: A UN Guide to Climate Neutrality

Use your common sense

You need to think of what will work for you. Solutions do not usually come in a one-size-fits-all format: they have to be tailored to individual circum- stances. Perhaps you have a job which requires you to have a car always available. That cuts down your chances of reducing the energy you use in transport. Perhaps you care for an elderly relative who needs warmth: not much scope there for reducing your heating bills as much as you could otherwise. Choosing what will work for you, of course, goes hand-in-hand with a determination to make as many GHG savings as you can. So, if you cannot do much in one area, you will probably want to make bigger cuts in other areas. And the bottom line remains the same: usually, the more energy you save, the more money you will save too. For many individuals in industrialized countries, food and related services make up the biggest chunk of emissions related to goods. Getting started on this is not too complicated. Buying only the food we need means refrig- erators working less hard, less food being wasted and thrown away , less Freeganism is a movement of mostly middle-class urban American – and increas- ingly global – anti-consumerists who, among other radical acts of refusal to subdue themselves to the dominant economic laws of our societies, feed themselves on meals prepared from food found in urban waste bins. Freegans do not do so out of pure ne- cessity, but to draw attention to the excesses of our throw-away culture. And not only that: by recovering discards from retailers, offices, schools, homes, hotels, or anywhere else, by rummaging through their trash bins, dumpsters, and trash bags, freegans are able to obtain food, beverages, books, toiletries magazines, comic books, newspa- pers, videos, kitchenware, appliances, music (CDs, cassettes, records, etc.), carpets, musical instruments, clothing, rollerblades, scooters, furniture, vitamins, electronics, animal care products, games, toys, bicycles, artwork, and just about any other type of consumer goods. Rather than contributing to further waste, freegans curtail garbage and pollution, reducing the overall volume of the waste stream. www.freegan.info . energy being wasted on producing the food and transporting it to our tables. And for those with a garden, how about the revolutionary idea of growing some of our own food? Without necessarily going all the way and installing a pig in every household, or even a few chickens, home-grown food will INDIVIDUALS

KICK THE HABIT THE CYCLE – REDUCE

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