And Then? Some Suggestions to start immediately:
Not run our cars for 10 minutes in the driveway to warm up.
Put legislation in place to make it illegal and dedicate half of the local police force to enforce it. The stiff fines could be used to subsidize alternative energy projects.
You Could cut our red meat consumption down to one or two times a week, but even better is buying your beef locally froma farmer who raises his beef naturally on grass instead of grain.
Stay away from soy burgers though. They come with a host of other problems, not in the least environmental. Among which the destruction of the Amazon rainforests.
When buying meat and other products try to buy locally.
Keep asking. Ask for organic where possible or at least grass fed beef.
A transportation tax to subsidize locally grown foods.
(a carbon tax?) The same would hold for the way in which the local stuff is grown.
Our new developments and subdivisions should be planned
in such a way that either people can get their stuff without having to use the car, or otherwise have a convenient public transportation system at hand.
Allow cars under a certain size free parking in the downtowns of our major centres.
Rip out all traffic lights wherever they can be replaced with single lane traffic circles.
It's being done in Europe. Why do we always have to be so backward?
Rip out all the four-way stops, replace with simple right right-of-way.
The savings alone from cars not having to idle at stoplights and not having to start up again from a full stop are beyond imagination.
Completely ban the use of incandescent light bulbs and within a reasonable time eliminate as well all fluorescent replacements and have all domestic, as well as industrial and commercial light sources from LED's.
Where possible and feasible no house should be without a solar hotwater heater.
No new structures should be allowed with space heating. Floor heating should be the norm
Passive solar roofs with insulated cistern storage for solar heated water.
Start building windfarms and solar roofs (photovoltaic as well as passive)
Stop the whining about the arrival of windfarms in our neighbourhoods. If they bother us, we can move. Most likely there will be assistance to aid in the move.
But honestly I doubt the windfarms are much more than a perceived problem. I have never heard anything but positive things about the hundreds I came across on a recent visit to Europe. There is no noise, vibration and they look a lot nicer than a chimneystack.