The First 5
These are the easiest changes you can make to your daily life, but they're critically important. Just by making these changes you will reduce your carbon footprint by roughly 1000 pounds per year, plus you'll save oil, trees, and other valuable resources. But even more importantly, once you realize how easy it is to make these lifestyle changes, you'll be on your way to adopting more.
1. Kick the bottle - do away with single-use plastic water bottles. Instead, find a reusable bottle and stick with it. By taking it everywhere you'll use less plastic and drink more water!
2. Kick the cup - find a sturdy cup and use it both for your coffee at home and when you visit Starbucks.
3. Reusable shopping bag - get 3 or 4 and keep them in your car at all times. You may forget from time to time, but soon enough you'll get into the groove and feel good about saving plastic and paper.
4. Check your tires each month and keep them inflated to the recommended amount. This little trick will save you money and cut emissions with very little effort.
5. Change your 5 most-used light bulbs to CFLs. They use less electricity and last longer than standard bulbs, saving you money in the process of helping the environment.

Ready for more?
Now that you have your feet wet and have experienced how easy it is to go green, try some of these higher-impact steps to a greener lifestyle.
6. Reduce your junk mail. Sign up with www.greendimes.com or a similar service and specify the catalogs that you no longer want to receive. This simple step will reduce junk mail by 75-90%, which translates to saved trees and lower emissions.
7. Turn off your appliances all the way. Also known as "phantom power", TVs, DVDs, stereo equipment, monitors, printers, etc use electricity even when they're turned off if they're still plugged into the wall.  Instead, plug them all into a power strip and turn off the power strip except when you are using them.
8. Install low-flow showerheads (<2.5 gallons per minute). If you simply cannot live without a 10 minute shower, go low-flow and save both water and emissions.
9. Clean clothes with cold water. Save water heating by switching to cold water wash for all laundry.
10. Find another way to work. At least once a week, either carpool, ride your bike, take public transit, or telecommute and avoid using your car. Students can do their part by biking or walking to school.
11. Reduce shower time to 5 minutes. Save water and lower your emissions by speeding up your shower routine.
12. Reduce weekly garbage. Americans generate 4.5 pounds of waste per day. Use less and recycle everything that you can in order to significantly lower both your carbon and ecological footprints.

• The average U.S. Citizen has a water footprint of 2480 cubic meters per year, which is the highest per capital water consumption in the world and roughly 2X the global average.
• The water footprint of China is about 700 cubc meters per year per capital.  Only about 7% of the Chinese water footprint falls outside China.
• Japan has a footprint of about 1150 cubic meters per year per capita, of which about 65% comes from outside the country.
  
• The production of one kilogram of beef requires 16 thousand litres of water.
• To produce one cup of coffee we need 140 litres of water.
• To make 1 quart of Florida orange juice requires 2 quarts of gasoline and 1000 quarts of water.
• Find more water facts at Water Footprint .

• Buildings use approximately 1/3 of total energy usage in the U.S.
• Buildings use approximately 2/3 of all electricity consumed in the U.S.
• Building construction utilizes 25% of all wood that is harvested around the globe.
• To construct buildings, roughly 3 billion tons of raw materials are utilized each year.

• Americans, in combination with U.S. industry, waste approx 20x the weight of each U.S. citizen each day...over 1 million pounds per person per year!  And that doesn't count the weight of water involved in those processes.
  
• Less than 2% of the total waste stream in the U.S. is actually recycled.
• Each year, 50 trillion pounds of American resources are transformed into non-productive solid and gaseous waste.
• In a typical car, over 80% of the energy in the fuel it consumes is wasted. In other words, less than 20% is actually used to turn the wheels!
• Only 1% of the total flow of materials in the U.S. economy results in, and is still being used within, products 6 months after they are sold.
  
• It takes 98 tons of various resources to make 1 ton of paper.
• To make 1 quart of Florida orange juice requires 2 quarts of gasoline and 1000 quarts of water.

How much CO2 is emitted while doing everyday tasks?

• Each gallon of gasoline burned by a car or truck emits 24 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere
• Every mile flown by airplane emits 1 pound of CO2 per person….and that doesn’t count all of the other passengers
• Every kilowatt-hour of electricity used in a home emits 2.3 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere

• Travel 2,000 miles in an airplane
• Drive 1,350 miles in a large SUV
• Drive 1,900 in a mid-sized car
• Drive 6,000 in a hybrid gasoline-electric car
• Run an average U.S. household for 2 months
• Have your computer on for 15 months

• 145 drivers of large SUVs switch to hybrids for 1 year
• 5000 100-watt light bulbs are replaced with 18-watt CFLs for 1 year
• An acre of Douglas Fir trees lives for 50 years
• 4 acres of tropical rainforest are protected from de-forestation
• One 600 kilowatt wind turbine runs for a year

• 4.5 tons for the average U.S. car
• 4.5 tons for the average global citizen
• 6.2 tons for the average U.S. household
• 21 tons for the average U.S. resident>
• 6 billion tons for the U.S. as a whole
• 25+ billion tons for the planet as a whole