It has never been easier than now to think that nothing you do matters. Large forces are moving us in certain directions and that motion seems unstoppable. The planet is warming at an accelerating and alarming rate. There is historic and long-term drought in the American west broken up by terrible floods that do great damage. Locally, we see increasing prevalence of cyanobacteria in our ponds and poor marine water quality. Local water supplies are strained by the continued foolish use of drinking water used to irrigate sterile monoculture lawns that don’t support local species and add nutrients and pesticides to the environment. The list goes on and that’s just on the environmental front. Society feels as if it is careening down a destructive path paved by distrust and division.
But rather than wallow in all this, I am here to implore you to realize that the only thing that assures that these dark trends will continue is your inaction. Despite how it looks and feels right now the ability to change direction is ours. Change is a choice. Not acting is also a choice and its implications are clear, we see where this is all going. Changing behaviors, even in small and incremental ways can make a difference; if nothing else, it offers hope and without hope, what do you have? Not much.
Telling you how awful things are and leaving it at that is pointless and self-defeating. Here are some things that you can do now, this summer, that will make a difference.
Change your lawn care practices. Stop fertilizing your lawn. If you use a service tell them to stop using pesticides and fertilizers. Despite what the service will say, you don’t need fertilizer and pesticides. The service works for you; it’s not the other way around. Lay off the lawn watering; your grass will green up again in the cooler weather. Add clover to your lawn; it will stay green when your grass goes dormant and it makes its own nitrogen, another reason to quit fertilizing. Add some native plants to your yard, ideally by replacing a little of your turf with plants that are a food source and habitat for beneficial species.
Don’t spray for insect control. You are introducing poisons into your yard no matter what the contractor tells you. Think about it for a minute. They are offering you the promise (never really fulfilled by the way) of a bug-free yard. How? By killing the bugs. Duh. By spraying, you are willingly poisoning your yard with either synthetic or natural poison. Both kill; that’s the point. When spraying, you are killing a lot of non-target insects that are the food source for that pretty bird you used to see in your yard that no longer comes by. Ever wonder why? Maybe because the birds like to eat the soft protein-filled caterpillars killed by your sprayer, so it moved along elsewhere looking for food or starved to death because everyone in your area sprays.
Look into improving the energy performance of your house. The Cape Light Compact offers great incentives to upgrade the efficiency of your house and will do an energy performance assessment of your home for free. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by contacting them.
Educate yourself. APCC.org is filled with useful information on how to become a better environmental steward. Information is critical to good decision making and avoiding practices that degrade the environment for no good reason. Learn more because Dean Wormer had it right in Animal House: knowledge is good.
Get involved. Change will only come when it is demanded by the electorate. We remain, for the moment anyway, governed with the consent of the people. If the voters demand action and support only those candidates who will act on the environment, then change will come. We have not prioritized the environment in elections, and we are now living with the consequences.
There is plenty more you can do to make a difference than the items listed above, but maybe a seed has been planted. If each of us does at least just a little, then maybe things will better and at least we tried. There is hope in trying and with hope we can keep going.
