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When it comes to the economy and the environment, little things mean a lot. Saving a little bit of money here and there adds up over time. Reducing pollution in small ways also brings a great accumulated benefit in improved health and a more stable, pleasant planet.

The problem with a lot of environmental activism these days is that it’s all focused on what the government could do… if only we had better leaders running our government. This kind of activism gets people involved in the process of trying to change government, which is important, but it involves a high stakes, all-or-nothing, gamble. Either we win and get an environmentally-friendly government, or we’ll all screwed.

I’m not against high-stakes activism at all. However, it’s important to to work on other scales as well. If we genuinely care about the environment, there are small things we can do that, individually, will only bring about small results, but are nonetheless guaranteed to bring about some positive change.

For example, there’s the option of using solar power. No, I’m not talking about using the power of the sun to bring electricity to your whole house (though that’s a good idea for people in the Sun Belt). Instead, I’m talking about something on a smaller scale: Using solar power to recharge small batteries.

Recharchable batteries are a good idea even on their own. They reduce metal consumption by huge amounts by using the same physical batteries as storage units of electrical power over and over again. However, when conventional recharging units are used, the source for the energy stored in the batteries is usually pretty dirty, coming from power plants that create energy by burning fossil fuels and pumping pollutants into our air and water.

Solar-powered battery rechargers close the loop and enable you to bring power back to rechargable batteries without relying on old, dirty energy technology. These rechargers are commerially available right now, so you don’t have to wait for some Republican plan to develop renewable energy technology 20 years from now.

Solar recharging of batteries is less expensive than other choices as well. Consider this: I just bought a solar energy battery recharger for just 20 dollars. Add to that a supply of rechargable batteries: 8 AAA batteries, 8 AA batteries, 4 C batteries and 4 D batteries, and the amount I paid was just $126.00

Does that sound like a lot to spend on batteries? That’s an understandable emotional reaction, but use your rational mind for a moment to evaluate the following rational facts:

- A single conventional AA battery costs about 87 cents
- A single rechargable AA battery can be used about 500 times.
- The cost of 500 conventional AA batteries would be 435 dollars - almost 3 and a half times the amount I paid for my solar battery recharger and a whole bunch of rechargable batteries

The upshot is that even if I paid 126 dollars for just the solar battery charger and a single AA battery, I would recoup my costs with that one battery and still have two-thirds of the rechargable battery’s life left. With the larger number of batteries I actually got for my 126 dollars, the savings will come much more quickly and be much more dramatic. At the same time, I get to know that I’m using a clean source of energy.

The change is small if confined to just one household. Just imagine, though, what a boon it would be to our economy and to the environment if just half of the 280 million people in the United States would use a solar battery recharger instead of just throwing their batteries away after one use.

By the way, the company through which I got my solar recharger and rechargable batteries, and the catalog that I link to above, is called Gaiam - and I think they’re worth a look. They have some stuff that makes a lot of sense, and some stuff that’s pretty silly, but the point is that they’re actually making an effort to show Americans a way to live within their means and live in harmony with the natural balance of our environment, without having to make signficant sacrifices in our comfortable lifestyles. That’s a lot more positive than just moping, waiting for Republican politicians to somehow become enlightened and finally begin listening to reason.

For the record, we at Irregular Times don’t have any kind of marketing agreement with the folks at Gaiam. We don’t gain a thing by referring you to them - except in these sense that when the American economy is improved, and our environment is spared the effects of unnecessary waste, we all benefit.