I often hear someone say “What can I do?” when the topic swings around to the climate crisis we are facing. Some who utter these words are deadly serious in their intent. Others, not yet fully onboard to battle what we are facing, probably will fall back to the rationalization often used come election time: “What good will one little vote do?” and “Why bother?” We must remember that each of the tens of millions of votes counted in the last election began with a single lone effort—and democracy was better for it.   

We do hear of large scale projects such as wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, and ethanol-laced gasolines—anything to reduce the use of fossil fuels. I’ve heard that some growers are willingly reducing the amount of surface or subsurface waters they use for crop production—some to zero use of such waters. Their crop yields will be less, and crop insurance companies are scrambling to gather data from which they can offer fair crop insurance premiums. But, by-and-large, our society prefers large scale solutions, changes done by someone else from which we can benefit—without too much bother or sweat on our part. 

But something is missing from the societal master equation of action that includes the examples given above. Put quite simply, the large majority of us living in countries with high standards of living, in countries providing relatively plush and comfortable living conditions, have not yet really taken up the challenge of becoming personally involved in actions that could ameliorate the effects of climate change. Many people feel, incorrectly, that because of their geographic location, they are immune from any negative effects.  

However, I know that some seriously ponder “What can I do?”  The answer is plenty, but the actions I’ll mention will not kick off bells and whistles, will not get one in line to receive the Person of the Year Award in any category. The actions in question are boring and repetitive—but extremely valuable and worthwhile. Anything you can think of that will reduce the usage of freshwater, fossil fuels, and energy in general is worthwhile. I will mention several possible actions in which to engage, but must also admit that, aside from serious recycling, I pretty much stand as one hurling stones from the front porch of my glass house.

How about washing clothes in cold water; and shaving with same. These work for me. How about saving all leftover clear water from table and kitchen to use for watering plants? I know someone who does this, and it works well. Mow and water your lawn less often. Plant trees, but more important is nurturing existing large mature trees. Such large mature ones already possess a huge ready-to-go chemical factory for both removing carbon dioxide from the air and making many useful chemicals in the process. 

Reduce your domestic daily water usage by one quart. Okay, you say, but that would be a teensy drop-in-the-bucket up against the magnitude of the world-wide shortage of potable water, against the volume of water fought over in the international water wars that are heating up. Yeah, even in our own country; ever lived along either the Colorado or Rio Grande Rivers? We’ll come back to that quart of water.

How about reducing your weekly car mileage by one-fourth? Or keeping the house temperature two degrees warmer in summer and two degrees cooler in winter. How about using more raw foods and less canned or packaged items in the kitchen? Don’t have time for that! Compute a weekly time budget, paying special attention to how much time is spent staring at either the TV or I-Phone screens. You’ll probably save money also.

Become a dedicated recycler. Many everyday items can be recycled. Check it out. Although this would be difficult, work to reduce the amount of plastic you take into your home, and then have to dispose of. The world, including our oceans, is awash in plastics. And they are proving to be harmful to the health of both aquatic and terrestrial organisms. 

Now, about that quart of water. If each of us reduced our domestic water usage by a mere one quart per day, the result would add up. Let’s put Manhattan’s population, conservatively, at 50,000. Although the exact volume of water saved would be very difficult to predict, we would see city usage fall by something like 12,500 gallons per day! For the whole population of Kansas, that would be some 728,000 gallons per day not used. To give these figures some scale, the average flow of the Kansas River at Manhattan this time of year equals 6,325 cubic feet per second, or 40,700 gallons per second. And the average daily water use per capita for Manhattan is 118 gallons, which translates to a daily use of 5.9 million gallons for the 50,000 residents. 

Working together, we can make a difference. What if we reduced our daily water use by a gallon a day, our average gasoline usage to a gallon less each week? What if half of us used cold water for laundry and half of us recycled, lived a bit warmer in summer and cooler in winter? We can make a difference! Anything that reduces the use of freshwater, fossil fuels, natural resources and energy in general is of great value! We are, too!