ASSOCIATED PRESS • August 13, 2025
A study recently published by the National Academy of Sciences found that when asked to rank actions, such as swapping a car that uses gasoline for an electric one, carpooling or reducing food waste, participants weren’t very accurate when assessing how much those actions contributed to climate change. “People over-assign impact to actually pretty low-impact actions such as recycling, and underestimate the actual carbon impact of behaviors much more carbon intensive, like flying or eating meat,” said Madalina Vlasceanu, report co-author. The top three individual actions that help the climate, including avoiding plane flights, choosing not to get a dog and using renewable electricity, were also the three that participants underestimated the most. Dogs have a big climate impact. Dogs are big meat eaters, and meat is a significant contributor to climate change.