2. Vegetarianism or Veganism.Or, if that sounds too difficult, start by just reducing your meat consumption. From GreenWikia: "More land has to be put into agricultural production to produce meat than to produce plant products. Because the methane they belch is 23 times more effective at retaining heat than CO2, domestic animals contribute more to global warming than all human transportation combined."

    Becoming vegetarian （and especially vegan） is one of the changes you could make with the biggest impacts on the environment. If we all gave up meat and other animal products, we'd have enough food to （theoretically, at least） feed the world （most of the food we produce goes to raising animals for meat, milk and eggs）, and we'd drastically cut down on the amount of pollution and greenhouse emissions.

    Becoming vegetarian doesn't have to be difficult - in fact, it can be a lot of fun if you explore new foods and ethnic cuisines. And while becoming vegan or vegetarian does not guarantee that you'll be healthier, most vegetarians are healthier （on average） than the average American. If you replace （usually fatty） meat and other animal products with fruits and veggies and whole grains and legumes, you'll get healthier. If you replace them with French fries and Twinkies, you won't. （Feel free to argue this point, but please please don't share info from the discredited Westin Price Foundation - it's really full of pseudoscience, we've had this discussion many times before, and I would rather not have links to fraudulent articles on my site.）

    I'm not saying that you're evil if you eat meat or drink milk, or that you're necessarily unhealthy. It's definitely possible to eat healthy with animal products in your diet. But I am saying it's something you should consider, for the sake of the environment … and if you get healthier in the meantime, that's a nice side benefit.

    I recently decided to go back to veganism （I've been lacto-ovo vegetarian for about 18 months, and was vegan before that） and will write a post about it soon, including some links shared by friends on Twitter.

    3. Consume Less.This is a pretty simple （though not necessarily easy） step that can make a huge difference in all areas of your life: how many resources you consume, how healthy you are, how much you spend, how much clutter you have. Buy less, use less, eat less - get away from loving and buying stuff.

    It's interesting because when we try to become greener, many of us automatically look to buying green products … which is good, when you do have to buy something, but actually, buying fewer products overall is better than going out and buying a bunch of environmentally-conscious type products.

    By consuming fewer products, clothes, gadgets, furniture … stuff … you'll use fewer resources and contribute less to landfills. When you buy something, a lot of resources were used not only for the materials needed to make the product （wood, paper, metal, plastic, cotton, etc.）, but to harvest those materials, to manufacture the product, to package it, to transport it to the store or to your door. Get into the habit of buying less, needing less, and when you do get something you need, get it used if possible. You'll end up spending less money as well.liuxuepaper.com