Quiz: What’s the Best Way to Shrink Your Carbon Footprint?

 Quiz: What’s the Best Way to Shrink Your Carbon Footprint?

By Sander van der Linden

“Lists of ways to reduce your personal greenhouse gas emissions are plentiful online, with recommendations ranging from using energy-saving light bulbs to not having children. The number of options can feel overwhelming, and there’s another problem: Researchers have found that people often adopt habits that may seem significant but actually have a very small effect on limiting climate change.”

Many people have misconceptions about what the most effective habits might be, due to disinformation, savvy marketing, and something called the “illusory truth” effect.

I’ve been studying how people think and feel about climate change for over a decade. During that time, I’ve found that while the public’s understanding that climate change is happening has increased, practical knowledge about what we can do to counter it is lacking. To demonstrate how far we have to go, I worked with Times Opinion and Ipsos to test about 1,000 Americans’ ability to size up various ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Take the quiz to see how you stack up. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/15/opinion/how-reduce-carbon-footprint-climate-change.html