Reducing Our Carbon Footprints

Among the three environmental commandments--reduce, reuse, and recycle--reduce is by far the most important.

In their book, David Suzuki's Green Guide, David Suzuki and David Boyd present a number of creative ways to reduce consumption without making sacrifices.

• Share books, CDs, and magazine subscriptions.

• Instead of buying hedge clippers, chain saws or other power tools, consider sharing them with your neighbours.

• Rent or lease instead of buying. This applies to a wide variety of products from video games to appliances.

• Only buy products that you have time to enjoy. Instead of subscribing to a daily newspaper, buy a newspaper only when you are actually going to read it. Consider reading newspapers and magazines online or at the library.
  

• When choosing between similar products, select the one with the least amount of packaging.
  

• Take advantage of new technologies to reduce your footprint. You can download music (legally) from the Internet instead of purchasing CDs. You can send e-cards instead of paper cards.