This article mainly talks about sustainable living. It states that many people “believe that the power and goods you consume are changing the climate but do not believe in your ability to stop it.” This article shares some hard facts with the people that  each family has a carbon bill of about “7 tons for transportation, 14 tons for housing, eight tons for food, six tons for services, five tons for goods,” and states that “our societal footprint is the most urgent problem of our era — and perhaps the most intractable.” These are alarming facts, and as the article continues, it states some steps to reduce the carbon footprint. Some steps include decarbonizing the grid (cutting electricity), electrifying the transportation sector and regulating industrial production, replacing gas-burning furnaces with electric heat pumps, updating building efficiencies, and banning air-conditioners and fridges that use hydrofluorocarbon. These are some of the main ways to reduce the carbon footprint, but the article shares the sad fact that this isn’t enough to change climate change. The article states, “All around the world, developed nations have locked themselves into unsustainable, energy-intensive lifestyles.” Continually the article goes on to talk about Uruguay and his journey, and the experiences he learned there. He talks about how people have built their societies on unsustainable living, governments being involved, and how the community needs to focus on the goal that “Goal shouldn’t be carbon neutrality, but how to make it sustainable,” 

 

This article shocked me because of all the alarming facts stated in the first half of the article. The story is about him traveling to Uruguay and learning how their society works and how their government was and has been involved in reducing carbon emissions. The quote that stood out to me the most was, “The goal shouldn’t be carbon neutrality, but how to make it sustainable.” This stood out to me because the author talked a lot about how our society is built on unstable living, and it’s hard to change that. For example, eating meat is a massive problem, but people love meat, so we need to find a solution so that people can eat it and not add to our carbon footprint. This article was excellent, and I learned a lot.