2. One (Easy) Thing To Do Right Now

Getting into your car and driving down, to recycle your glass bottles at the local supermarket, is not the solution. To reduce the effects of climate change, there are a number of things that we need to start doing (or stop doing). Some of these may take you a bit of investigation and/or persuasion.

Meanwhile, there is one thing you can do right now, which will make an instant and significant difference: stop wasting energy.

Three things to understand

Most important: DON'T PANIC! It is easy to become overwhelmed with despair as you find out about the issue of climate change, and you start to think about how slowly people/politicians react to these things. It is important to remember though that we have some time: politicians have recognised the problem, people are working on it, climate scientists say that if we act now we should be able to mitigate it (i.e. make it less bad). To fix it we need to start making an effort now; and then we need to increase that effort over the next 40 years.
The most fundamental relationship that you need to understand right now is that: the more energy we use (through light bulbs, computers, cars, heating, etc) the more we will change the climate. You can make that assumption at the moment because 80% of UK energy comes from fossil fuels, and burning fossil fuels is the most significant cause of climate change.
It is also true that most people are pretty wasteful in this country (leaving lights on here and there, etc.). Let's face it: energy is pretty cheap in this country so there is not a lot of pressure to be efficient. That is why there is probably a lot of energy saving that you can make if you just stop the waste. This will make a difference and it does not mean changing your life: it just means developing some good habits. I remember my dad telling me as a kid: "good habits are as easy to get into as bad ones" so start learning them.

Whilst you are getting to good habits saving energy (over the next 6-months?), you need to get more informed about the issue and look at what you need to do next. You might want to reward yourself as well, especially as you realise that all of this energy-saving will be saving you money on your electricity/gas/etc bills!

Five ideas about how to stop wasting energy

There are lots of ideas about energy-saving out there: on the internet, in books, etc. These are a few thoughts and habits to get into. Hopefully they will get you started and get you thinking about other things you can do to stop yourself from wasting energy.

It takes a tremendous amount of energy to heat water. Think about this when, for example, you are using your kettle: only put in the amount of water you need. Our kettle is rated at 3 kilowatts - when it is switched on that is the equivalent of 50 sixty-watt light-bulbs!
There are a lot of appliances, like televisions, that have a "standby" mode. However, they are still burning electricity when you put them on standby, in some cases about 25% of what they use when they are switched on. The Big Green Switch estimates that 8-10% household energy is wasted by appliances on standby. Switch them off at the wall. Also think about switching off all of those appliances with pointless LED clocks: do you need the microwave and the cooker to tell you what time it is when you already have a clock in the kitchen?
Generally switching things off when you are not using them makes sense. For example, switch off the lights if you are leaving a room for more than 5 minutes. Also, make sure you switch off things like your mobile phone chargers when they are not in use.

Incidentally, you might want to think about buying or borrowing a meter that shows you how much electricity you are using. Take a look at the Elecrisave website. They have a hand-held meter that tells you how much electricity you are using, so you can wander round the house, switching things on and off, and find out for yourself how much energy they use. I ended up chatting to Justin Rowlatt (who was BBC Newsnight's "Ethical Man"), after one of his after dinner speeches, he told me that this device was his top recommendation for saving energy in the home. I think he said it saved him about 20% on his electricity bill.

Don't leave the fridge door open...or the oven door open...or the window open (on a cold day). Keep in mind that it takes energy to keep things cold or make them warm. Leaving the fridge door open as you wander around the kitchen is both wasting energy and making your food go off quicker.
Don't waste water: it takes a lot of energy to purify and pump water so it gets to your taps, I should know as I work in the water industry. Habits, like turning the tap off whilst you are brushing your teeth, make a real difference. Another one that comes to mind is to fill up a bottle of water and put it in the fridge: if you want a glass of cold water, drink that. Don't leave the tap running and let all that precious water go to waste.