WriterByNature.com

The price of gasoline is beyond excessive. So, I have a new personal rule: if it’s within four miles, I walk. I have discovered a hiking trail less than a mile from my home. I can walk to the post office, two food stores, three bus stops and a train stop in less than a half hour.

I even passed two car rental agencies in my trek on foot. The bus and train can get me to other hiking trails, a major city and even an airport, should I need it. If I can carry a backpack with camping gear, I can carry groceries in the same pack.

My goal is to limit my driving to less than 100 miles a week. That gives me latitude to get to my doctor, if needed and my two CSA’s. I’ve given up swimming for now, because the pool is 15 miles away.

I was an active participant in the first Earth Day in 1970. As I look back at that time in the context of what grassroots interactions have become, I marvel at the gains and losses.

I’m encouraged by the twenty-something people I know who ride bicycles, exchange goods through Freegan networks, couch surf and dumpster dive, to avoid conspicuous consumption. I am deeply grateful to the thirty-something parents I know investing in their children, some by home schooling, to ensure they don’t cave in to the pressure of conspicuous consumption.

If my only source of information were the corporate media, I’d be discouraged. But I know better. I know I can easily give up driving without sacrificing my daily activities, including hiking. If I were brave, I’d invest in a bicycle. I know that all over this planet, people I’ve never met are making choices based on values dear to me.

All it takes is for each and every individual to decide to do one small thing, plant a tree, grow sprouts, keep useful materials out of the landfill, turn off a light - it seems so small, but like every small act, the value of the investment compounds.

I have to believe that there are enough of us taking one small step every day to invalidate the idiotic patter that has replaced media news. With that kind of grassroots effort, we may at least hold off, if not reverse, the devastating trends set in motion in the last 40 years.