I won’t say that getting involved with environmental stuff locally will completely cure you of climate doom feelings but it does help. Even volunteering with a local restoration group is nice. Spending a couple of hours to clean up an area or turn a plot of grass into a rain garden and seeing how much an area improved in a really short time span is a pretty good feeling! It feels like every place has a restoration group too. I’m in the Detroit area so I follow along with what Friends of the Rouge is doing.

Even if things have been moving very slowly at the national level, making changes at the local level can have a big impact. There’s things we can push for like more shade created by trees, more buses, and making it easier for people to bike.

There’s also things you can do in your own home, if you have a yard, like replacing grass with native plants, not using any chemical fertilizer, not constantly mowing your lawn, and reducing your waste by having a spot for compost.