It’s hard to read the latest news on climate change and not start to freak out. “Historians may look to 2015 as the year when the shit really started hitting the fan,” writes Eric Holthaus in Rolling Stone, and then goes on to list a few of the many ways that climate change is already here: Fires in the Pacific Northwest rainforest, record-setting heat waves in India and France, drought in California. There’s new evidence that sea levels could rise 10 times faster than expected. And this, of course, is just the beginning.

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When Holthaus and a group of scientists showed up in a Reddit AMA about the article, two questions stood out. Is it already too late to fix this? And if not, what can any of us do as individuals? The good news: It’s still possible to avoid some of the worst effects of climate change. As Holthaus wrote on Reddit: We are currently passing, or have already passed, points in the climate system that have locked in essentially irreversible change on timescales of hundreds of years. There are many more points in the system that we’ve yet to cross, however, which is where the call to individual action comes in. And while it’s obvious that systemic change is necessary, individuals can also make a difference. Half of American emissions come from residential energy use, for example, and even tiny tweaks at home could have a large impact. “U.S. households could easily reduce overall U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by over 7%,” says Tom Dietz, who has researched the potential of consumer action. “This is equivalent to zeroing out the total emissions from France.” Politically, citizens can make an even greater difference. Here’s a short list of what you can personally do to fight climate change, from the personal to the political. 1. Find Your Leverage Point Maybe you already take the subway to work instead of driving; maybe you’re vegetarian. Or maybe you travel so much you’ve racked up tens of thousands of frequent flier miles. Start by using a carbon footprint tool to calculate where you’re personally having an impact–and what you might change. It’s something that people usually tend to get wrong, focusing on something like reusable bags or vampire energy–which have a relatively tiny impact–instead of what actually matters. “We don’t see how much energy is used,” says Dietz. “So naturally people aren’t very well calibrated about those sorts of in-the-house energy uses. We naturally tend to overestimate the small things and underestimate the large things.”

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Even if you think you’re already doing a lot, you might be missing the biggest part of your own carbon footprint. Saul Griffith, an engineer, meticulously calculated every part of his footprint–from the underwear he bought to the carbon emissions of wars his tax dollars supported. He bikes, saves energy at home, and generally does everything he possibly can. But he realized that his carbon footprint was actually worse than the average American’s because he had to fly so much for work. (For people who want to mitigate the effects of flying, there are a couple of options. A few people, like Holthaus, decide to take the radical step of never getting in a plane again. Others, like Effective Altruism guru William MacAskill, buy carbon offsets; after evaluating more than 100 options for effectiveness, MacAskill recommends one called Cool Earth). Beyond finding a leverage point at home, you can also consider what influence you might have at work, your kids’ school, or elsewhere in your community. “You sort of have to multiply where the places are you can save energy by how much influence you can have,” says Paul Stern, one of Dietz’s co-authors on the study of the role of consumer action, and a staff officer at the National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council. “People who want to do something about this can try to do that mental calculation.” 2. Change Your Commute Despite the slowly declining popularity of the car, almost 9 in 10 Americans still drive to work. More than three-quarters drive alone. When Dietz, Stern, and their fellow researchers evaluated where most people could have the most impact, one of the biggest answers was changing the commute. The best solution: Ditching the car completely for the train, bus, walking, or one of the many new electric bikes on the market. For those who can’t give up a car, the next best choice is buying a new Tesla or Leaf. Buying a new EV is an example of how much more difference a single action can make than hundreds of less effective ones. “What we find over and over again is that the first things that come to mind–daily behaviors–have less impact than things that are done infrequently,” says Stern. “Replacing your car with a hybrid, for example, or an electric vehicle that runs on your solar collectors, has a much bigger impact over time.”

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Together, these actions can make a difference. “Climate change is a big problem,” says Dietz. “No single technology, policy, or action will be enough to bring greenhouse gas emissions down to the levels we need to avoid danger. But a mix of actions can do that. In the jargon, this is called the ‘wedge’ approach with each ‘wedge’ some kind of action that helps and all the wedges together getting us to the emissions reductions we need.”