“Consumption is a tricky issue for us, but we need to start talking about it.”

So says Peter Lehner, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council. This is welcome news. Like the other big environmental NGOs, NRDC has shied away from telling people what to eat (less red meat and dairy), what kinds of cars to drive (smaller ones), whether to fly (not too much) or how many homes to own (one).

That may be about to change.

I spoke to Lehner (right) last week after a three-day Climate, Mind and Behavior symposium sponsored by NRDC and the Garrison Institute, a nonprofit whose program on “transformational ecology” is led by Jonathan F.P. Rose, a New York real estate developer who also sits on NRDC's board. The event was designed to explore ways to change behavior on a scale big enough to have a major impact on global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The stellar group of participants included environmentalists (Paul Hawken, Van Jones and Gus Speth), investors and business people (Mark Fulton and Bruce Kahn of Deutsche Bank, Jesse Fink of MissionPoint Capital Partners, Jack Jacometti of Shell) and academics (Dr. Benjamin Barber, John Gowdy of RPI, Jon Krosnick of Stanford and Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale).

The headline out of the event: Simple and inexpensive changes could reduce global warming emissions by one billion tons.

Put another way, the NRDC says changes in behavior could generate as many reductions as one of the “climate stabilization wedges” made famous (at least among climate geeks) by Princeton professors Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow in this 2004 article in Science.

As Lehner puts it: “If all Americans acted together, by taking fairly modest steps, many of which are cost-saving or cost-neutral and will give them better lives, we could eliminate emissions equivalent to those of the entire nation of Germany.”

“People often ask, if I change my behavior, what difference will it make?” Lehner goes on. “This analysis showed that it makes a lot of difference. That's exciting.”

He hastens to add that individual actions cannot be a substitute for the policy changes needed to curb emissions and promote clean energy. Instead, he hopes, personal and individual actions will lead to activism.

“If you start biking to work, you may become more active in your community, to make sure there are bike lanes," he says. "Policy is no longer abstract. It's very real.”

Here are some of the recommendations from NRDC and the Garrison Institute. They may sound familiar, but bear with me - there's a potential for new thinking here:

• Fly once less per year: The average one-way commercial flight from London to Los Angeles produces more GHG emissions per passenger than the average British commuter produces yearly by car, train, and subway combined. While it would be unreasonable to expect those who fly only one or two times per year to give up their flight (that flight could well be their vacation), frequent flyers, and especially business travelers, could take advantage of alternative options like telecommuting to cut down on air travel.

• Consume less red meat and dairy: All meats are not created equal. While the average pound of beef consumed in the United States is responsible for 20 pounds of emissions, a pound of chicken is responsible for less than two. Today's average American consumes a prodigious quantity of red meat, the equivalent of one McDonald's Angus Bacon and Cheese Burger per day. Replacing two days' servings of red meat with poultry will reduce emissions by more than 70 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMtCO2e) in 2020. Dairy cattle similarly produce vast quantities of GHG emissions. Dropping dairy two days per week in favor of plant-based foods is not only healthy-animal fats are closely correlated to obesity, diabetes and many forms of cancer-but will save more than 35 MMtCO2e in 2020.

• Consume paper and plastics more responsibly: Buying recycled paper, stemming the flow of unwanted catalogs by two-thirds, and reducing printer paper consumption by one-third (easily achieved by printing doublesided) will save more than 50 MMtCO2e in 2020. Dropping bottled water consumption by 50 percent in that same timeframe will save another 8 MMtCO2e.

I've deliberately selected the recommendations that affect consumption. Others are less controversial and more familiar: Replace incandescent bulbs with CFLs, reduce motor vehicle idling, fix leaks and heat loss in your house, unplug appliances and turn the thermostat down a bit in winter and up a bit in summer (cardigan not required).

So what's new here? Two things, I think.

The first is that the science of behavioral economics, along with new work being done around happiness studies and climate change communications, offer fresh insights into how to get people to change. I've written about these developments before (see What's for lunch? Behavioral economics meets climate change and How to talk about climate change) and they are exciting.