Every person’s circumstance are different, so no shoe fits all.

• What activities make my climate footprint really BIG?

For the family thinking of having another child, this is likely to be, by far, the most obvious climate impact to think about. For those intending to build a house, this has to be their top priority. For those who fly a lot in jet planes, this obviously needs to be their top priority.

But for many others, the traditional meat eating Australian diet would have to be their biggest climate impact and priority for action.

These ‘big ticket’ items can be controversial and sensitive to deal with, but we can’t sweep them under the carpet. Own them! Stare them down.

• What activites cause the biggest impact? 

The six biggest impacts are probably:

1. Having children (too many)
2. Jet aircraft flying
3. Diet (especially excessive meat eating)
4. Building (for those who are building new homes or renovating)
5. Food growing / buying practices
6. General transport

It doesn’t matter where you are starting from. The main thing is simply to recognise these ‘big ticket’ items and make sensible choices to reduce our overall impact into the future.

• What are the most powerful things I can do to powerdown? 

1. Look to the ‘multiplier effect’.
Whilst it is most important that we adjust our own lifestyles (so that we live according to our values) we can often have a much higher impact by affecting other people and institutions.

We can turn off a few lights at home and save a bit of paper. Excellent!  But, we can probably deliver 100 times that benefit at our workplace.

Lobbying politicians to act on climate change is probably the most important thing we can do, but even this activity should not deflect us from our own efforts at sustainable living.

2. Focus on the ‘big ticket’ items:

Many people do sensible little things like change their light bulbs and pour less water in their kettles – and feel really good about it.  And then make other decisions that completely blow their carbon footprint out of the water – like buying a house that’s 40 kilometre from your workplace, or buying a wall-sized plasma TV, or flying to Spain for a 2 week holiday.

Look to the 6 high priority behaviours above – and do a reality check on where you stack up with these big ticket items. There’s no point sweating the small stuff if you have a major blind spot that’s burning a big hole in the planet. 

3. Make a personal commitment:
It is hypocritical to moralise about the government not responding to the climate crisis if we do not set adequate targets ourselves. Ironically, most detractors of government have an increasing carbon footprint, yet they do not join the dots themselves.

So… establish a personal or household target. Set yourself an action plan. Make it your commitment. Measure your results. And… most importantly, have fun doing it.

• And within my home? 

Again every house is different. Some have huge windows, some have bad air leaks, some have bad design features.

A Home Energy Assessment will quickly pick up where your home most needs attention.

But if you look at a typical home energy pie it is obvious that most energy within your home will be used up by heating and hot water heating. In nearly every case reducing these energy costs are the most fruitful things to do first up.