Can one person slow global warming? Sure! You along with many others can create paths to cut carbon emissions.

Turn food into fuel :
The Department of Energy has doubled its 2005 commitment to funding research into bio fuels- any non petroleum fuel source, including corn, soyabean, switch grass, municipal waste and (ick)used cooking oil.

Change your lightbulbs :
Compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) use one-quarter the electricity and last several years longer than conventional incandescent bulbs.

Get blueprints for a green house :
Consider renewable energy sources like solar electric systems, compact wind turbines and geothermal heat pumps to help power your home .

Light up your city :
Cities can save energy- and money- by illuminating public spaces with LEDs, or light-emitting diodes.

Pay the carbon tax :
Carbon taxes are more straightforward: a set tax rate is placed on the consumption of carbon in any form—fossil-fuel electricity, gasoline—with the idea that raising the price will encourage industries and individuals to consume less.

Ditch the mansion :
Oversize houses aren't just architecturally offensive; they also generally require more energy to heat and cool than smaller ones, even with efficient appliances.

Hang up a clothes line :
A recent study by Cambridge University's Institute of Manufacturing found that 60% of the energy associated with a piece of clothing is spent in washing and drying it. Over its lifetime, a T shirt can send up to 9 lbs. of carbon dioxide into the air. Wash your clothes in warm water instead of hot, and save up to launder a few big loads instead of many smaller ones. Use the most efficient machine you can find and dry your clothes the natural way, by hanging them on a line rather than loading them in a dryer. Altogether you can reduce the CO2 created by your laundry up to 90%. Plus, no more magically disappearing socks.

Give new life to your old fleece :
Making polyester fiber out of recycled garments, compared with using new polyester, will result in a 76% energy savings and reduce greenhouse gases by 71%

Build a skyscraper :
Almost everything about the Bank of America tower, a soaring skyscraper under construction near Times Square in New York City, has been designed to minimize the use of energy.

Turn up the geothermal heat :
Diane von Furstenberg's newest project is a 35,000-sq.-ft. office, showroom and retail store in Manhattan's trendy meatpacking district, all heated and cooled by water pumped from deep underground.

Take another look at vintage clothes :
High-end hand-me-downs (the smart set calls them vintage) are more ecologically sound than new clothes. Why? Buying a shirt the second time around means you avoid consuming all the energy used in producing and shipping a new one and, therefore, the carbon emissions associated with it.

Capture the carbon :
Coal is one of the dirtiest fuels around and a major source of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. What if coal-fired plants stopped spewing their carbon dioxide fumes into the air and instead sequestered them—pumped them deep into the ground for storage?

Let employees work close to home :
Sitting in gridlock wastes your time and the planet's fuel. The only solution, it seems, is to move your home next to the office. But what if you could move the office a little closer to home? That, in essence, is the concept called proximate commuting. It works best for companies with multiple locations in one metro area.

Ride the bus :
Public transit saves an estimated 1.4 billion gal. of gas annually, which translates into about 14 million tons of CO2, according to the American Public Transportation Association.

Move to a high-rise :
The denser the area you call home, the smaller your personal carbon footprint—not to mention your gas and electricity bill.

Pay your bills online :
Eliminating your paper trail by banking and paying bills online does more than save trees. It also helps reduce fuel consumption by the trucks and planes that transport paper checks.

Open a window :
Open a window instead of running the AC. Adjust the thermostat a couple of degrees higher in the summer and lower in the winter. Caulk and weatherstrip all your doors and windows. Insulate your walls and ceilings. Use the dishwasher only when it's full. Install low-flow showerheads. Wash your clothes in warm or cold water. Turn down the thermostat on the water heater. At the end of the year, don't be surprised if your house feels lighter. It just lost 4,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide.

Ask the experts for an energy audit of your home :
How green is your abode? A home energy audit, which most utility providers will do free of charge, will tell you the amount of power your household consumes and what you can do to reduce it.

Buy green power, at home or away :
If you don't live in a green power zone, you can support the industry by buying renewable energy certificates, which allow you to purchase green energy in another part of the country. The extra dollars will dispense green power to the national power grid.

Check the label :
Approved products can be pricier, but they cost less to power. Commercial buildings account for nearly 18% of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions, but those with the Energy Star label consume 35% less energy than the average. By using Energy Star appliances at home, consumers can reduce their utility bill as much as 30%.

Cozy up to your water heater :
Wrapping your heater in an insulated blanket—one costs about $10 to $20 at home centers—could save your household about 250 lbs. in CO2 emissions annually. Most water heaters more than five years old are constantly losing heat and wasting energy because they lack internal insulation. If the surface feels warm to the touch, get your heater an extra blankie. You'll both feel better.

Skip the steak :
Which is responsible for more global warming: your BMW or your Big Mac? Believe it or not, it's the burger. The international meat industry generates roughly 18% of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions—even more than transportation—according to a report last year from the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization.

Copy California :
Arnold Schwarzenegger may have signed the world's toughest anti-global-warming law, but it is Democrat Terry Tamminen, his environmental adviser, who is emerging as the state's real Terminator, winning industry support and the endorsement of a Republican Governor for a mandate to reduce the state's emissions 80% by 2050.

Just say no to plastic bags :
Every year, more than 500 billion plastic bags are distributed, and less than 3% of those bags are recycled. They are typically made of polyethylene and can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade in landfills that emit harmful greenhouse gases. Reducing your contribution to plastic-bag pollution is as simple as using a cloth bag (or one made of biodegradable plant-based materials) instead of wasting plastic ones.

Support your local farmer :
Fruit, vegetables, meat and milk produced closer to home rack up fewer "petroleum miles" than products trucked cross-country to your table.

Plant a bamboo fence :
Bamboo makes a beautiful fence, and because it grows so quickly (as much as 1 ft. a day or more, depending on the species), it absorbs more CO2 than, say, a rosebush. Do this, however, and you reduce bamboo's capacity as a carbon sink. Only large-scale plantings, which absorb CO2 faster than they release it, can favorably tip the scales.

Straighten up and fly right :
Unifying European airspace as a "single sky" could cut fuel use up to 12%. Pilots could also change the way they fly. Abrupt drops in altitude waste fuel, so experts are advocating "continuous descent" until the plane reaches the runway—where it could be towed instead of burning fuel while taxiing. Of course, the best way to reduce plane emissions is to fly less.

Have a green wedding :
Wherever you celebrate, you can reduce your CO2 impact and often save money by giving your wedding a local touch. Buy wine from a nearby vineyard or beer from a neighborhood brewery. Get your wedding cake from a local bakery, and use seasonal flowers, not imports. Anything you do to make your wedding a little more modest—from wearing a borrowed wedding dress to choosing recycled paper or a website for your invitations—will lower its contribution to carbon emissions. Consider it your wedding gift to the planet.

Remove the tie :
In the "cool biz" summer of 2005, Japanese salarymen swapped their trademark dark blue business suits for open collars and light tropical colors. It was all part of the Japanese government's effort to save energy by keeping its office temperatures at 82.4 degrees F throughout the summer.

Shut off your computer :
The average desktop computer, not including the monitor, consumes from 60 to 250 watts a day. The carbon impact would be even greater. Shutting it off would reduce the machine's CO2 emissions 83%, to just 63 kg a year.

Wear green eye shadow :
Bright green may not be in this season, but eco-friendly makeup has trend written all over it. In February, Cargo Cosmetics launched PlantLove, a botanical lipstick packaged in a 100% biodegradable tube made of polylactic acid—a corn-based renewable resource. When the tube is empty, plant it in the ground, and it sprouts flowers

Kill the lights at quitting time :
Assigning an office switch-off monitor might sound a little like third grade, but it could cut carbon emissions by reducing electricity use, not to mention extending equipment life and lowering maintenance costs.

Rearrange the heavens and the earth :
What if we could build a giant mirror in space to deflect the sun's energy? Or inject sulfur into the stratosphere to cool the earth? Scientists are examining such sci-fi methods as a gigantic Plan B should efforts to end carbon emissions fail. Geoengineering, as the field is called, involves rearranging the environment on a planetary scale. Such strategies may sound implausible, but the president of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences recommended exploring geoengineering options last year. That these far-out ideas are getting a serious hearing in mainstream science is a measure of how desperate the battle against climate change is becoming.

Rake in the fall colours:
Few things rip through the serenity of a Sunday in suburbia like the 70-db wail of a gas-powered leaf blower. Improvements have been made to make them more efficient, but using that motorized hurricane for just an hour still sucks down 1 pt. of gas and oil. It's a high price to pay for a job that can be done almost as well, if somewhat more slowly, with a rake. Besides, you can't lean on a leaf blower when you're done.

End the paper chase:
Paper does grow on trees: 900 million of them every year become pulp and paper. We can reduce that number by buying more recycled paper. It uses 60% less energy than virgin paper. Each ton purchased saves 4,000 kW-h of energy, 7,000 gal. of water and 17 trees, and a tree has the capacity to filter up to 60 lbs. of pollutants from the air.

Play the market:
To cut back on carbon, environmentalists are using the force of the free market. In carbon-emissions trading, the government puts a cap on how much carbon an industry is allowed to emit from power plants, factories and cars.

Think outside the packaging :
Paper or plastic? How about neither? All those Styrofoam peanuts and impregnable plastic CD cases cost energy to manufacture and deliver, and that means carbon. You can reduce the amount of packaging with a little consumer vigilance. Give back the extra napkins or unwanted sugar packets; carry that gallon of milk by its handle. True eco-nerds will even bring their own cup to a Starbucks.

Trade carbon for capital :
One of the most ambitious of the Kyoto Protocol's plans to help cut greenhouse gases was the Clean Development Mechanism, through which companies in the rich world could earn credit not for reducing their own emissions but for investing in energy efficient projects in the developing world.

Make your garden grow :
The U.S. spends more than $5 billion a year on fossil-fuel-derived fertilizers that leak chemicals into the ground and accelerate the release of nitrous oxide—a greenhouse gas. Try alternatives, from old-fashioned compost to grass clippings, which contain about 4% nitrogen.

Get a carbon budget :
The essential injustice of global warming is that the poor will suffer the worst effects while contributing far less to carbon emissions than the rich. So here's a radical solution: divide greenhouse-gas emissions by population, and give everyone in the world the right to emit the same amount of carbon—a personal carbon allowance.

Fill'er up with passengers:
Nearly 80% of people drive to work alone; about 38% drive alone in general. In some places, that's starting to change. As part of its Clean Air Act, Washington State appealed to business with incentives to encourage employees to drive less or at least stop driving alone. A state tax credit benefits companies that encourage their employees to carpool, ride the bus, walk or bike to work, or work a compressed workweek. The result: about 20,000 fewer vehicle trips each morning since the program started in 1991, saving commuters $13.7 million and 5.8 million gallons of gas, and reducing 78,000 tons of air pollutants and CO2-equivalent gases.

Pay for your carbon sins :
Feeling full of climate-change guilt, Americans are snapping up carbon offsets from Web-based retailers and nonprofits. Unlike mandatory allowances, offsets allow consumers to pay voluntarily to reduce carbon emissions by a quantity equal to their estimated contribution.

Move to London's new green zone:
On a brownfield site in the city's docklands, builders plan in 2010 to open the city's first large-scale zero-carbon housing development. All 233 homes on the 3-acre spot will hook up to a combined heat-and-power plant that turns wood chips into electricity and hot water, with extra juice from solar panels and wind. And should a chilly winter call for extra energy from the national grid, the plant will return an equivalent amount once demand from residents has dropped off.

Check your tires:
If you can boost your gas mileage from 20 to 24 m.p.g., your old heap will put 200 fewer pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere each year.

Make one right turn after another Check:
United Parcel Service took a detour to the right on its way to curb CO2 emissions. In 2004, UPS announced that its drivers would avoid making left turns. The time spent idling while waiting to turn against oncoming traffic burns fuel and costs millions each year. A software program maps a customized route for every driver to minimize lefts.

Plant a tree in the Tropics:
It seems like simple arithmetic: a tree can absorb up to a ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime, so planting one should be an easy way to mitigate climate change. Turns out it's not so simple. Recent studies have shown that trees in temperate latitudes—including most of the U.S.—actually have a net warming effect on the climate. The heat that dark leaves absorb outweighs the carbon they soak up.

If you must burn coal, do it right:
The poor coal plant: not only does it emit environment-damaging compounds, but even the newest (which can cost as much as $3 billion to build) lose more than half the heat generated when the coal is burned. But in co-generation power plants, that excess heat is captured and reused for domestic and industrial heating, nearly doubling a plant?s efficiency.

Drive green on the scenic routet:
A few specialty companies offer rental cars that run on biodiesel fuel, a clean-burning substance derived from renewable sources like vegetable oil. Bio-Beetle rents eco-friendly cars, ranging from Passats to Jeeps, in Hawaii and Los Angeles . A week's rental in L.A. runs from $200 to $300.

Set a higher standard :
Carbon-emission standards limiting the amount of CO2 that a new power plant can spew are in place in a handful of states. California's tough new rules virtually exclude new coal plants until clean-coal technology comes on line, and could establish a national standard—just as they might for auto emissions.

Be aggressive about passive :
The German government has thrown its weight behind the idea, guaranteeing low cost loans for people who want to build a passive house. They cost about 5% to 8% more to build than a standard one. Invented in a German-Swedish joint-venture in he early 1990s, about 10,000 have been built in Europe so far, most of them in Germany —and just three in the U.S.

Consume less, share more, live simply :
Live simply. Meditate. Consume less. Think more. Get to know your neighbors. Borrow when you need to and lend when asked. E.F. Schumacher praised that philosophy this way in Small Is Beautiful: "Amazingly small means leading to extraordinarily satisfying results.