It turns out many Americans aren't great at identifying which personal decisions contribute most to climate change.

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, which is caused mostly by the release of greenhouse gases that happen when fuels like gasoline, oil and coal are burned.

Recommended Videos

"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, repor

See Full Page