lifestyle and personal carbon dioxide emissions

All well-informed people now accept that climate change is probably the greatest challenge facing humanity, altering the ecology of the entire planet. Yet the forces accelerating and accentuating climate change – human emissions of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide from households, cars and flights, and ongoing deforestation - continue to rise. Every day this continues, the more drastic become the consequences of climate change on the natural world and the human population it supports.

Violet-bellied Hummingbird (Damophila julie)
at the Buenaventura Reserve, Ecuador.

Virtually everything we do has an impact on the climate but fortunately, and as reported by Sir Nicholas Stern, "there is still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, if we take strong action now". This means governments and industry, of course, but it also means that each and every one of us must take responsibility for our impact on the environment.

There are many things that we can do as an individual. WLT recommends three steps:

• Calculate your emissions - you can estimate your lifestyle emissions for your house, car, travel and flights using our calculators.
• Reduce your emissions as much as possible - in these pages we recommend websites which contain advice on how to reduce your carbon footprint and the impact your lifestyle has on the environment.
• Offset the remainder - offset your lifestyle emissions which cannot be avoided through the Carbon Balanced restoration ecology projects.