Small changes illustration

One of my long-time readers relocated from a very small rural community to a very large metropolitan area.  She commented that the difference really illustrated for her how small actions by a very large number of people add up.  This applies to both sides of sustainability – helping the earth or contributing to negative impacts.  Your actions DO matter, even if it seems to you that the actions are too small to make a difference.  Here are some illustrations. 

• Imagine a very large city with millions of homes, apartments, and businesses.  Each of these spaces is likely to have either heating in the winter, air conditioning in the summer, or both.  For our example, assume all of the thermostats are set at 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius).  Now imagine the potential energy savings if each of those spaces set the thermostat at 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius) in the winter and 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius) in the summer.  Per the University of Utah website, “if everyone in the US changed their thermostat by one degree Fahrenheit, it would reduce annual carbon emissions by 7.2 teragrams.”  I don’t know how they defined “everyone” to make this calculation. 
• Now imagine the streets in this city at rush hour.  Long lines of cars clog the streets, each putting out extra carbon emissions because the commute time is lengthened with so many cars creeping slowly toward their destination.  Imagine some drivers changing the time of their commute, so that they make the drive during a less congested time of day and so use less gas (and save a lot of time).  Imagine other drivers using public transportation or finding someone for a carpool.  Eventually, the clogged streets will be less crowded, and everyone else will be able to commute more efficiently.  Carbon emissions and other toxic air pollutants will be reduced in this city. 
• Imagine that the metropolitan area has 5 million people.  Now imagine that each of those people toss one single-use plastic fork onto a pile that will be taken to the landfill.  Five million plastic forks will make a very large pile.