Cranky gophers are my favorite story of 2024

Dec 30, 2024

Two years after Mount St. Helens erupted, the landscape was coated in thick ash. Researchers saw the desolate landscape as an opportunity to test the power of the pocket gopher. Pocket gophers (aka gophers) have fur on the inside pouches of their cheeks and are found across North America. Researchers knew they aerated soil and introduced fungi, soil spores, and seeds deep into the ground, but what would happen if they only had 24 hours to work? Would there be any long term benefits?

About the assignment, the gophers were cranky. Would you like being snatched from your home and dropped off at a blighted landscape? But they hitched up their overalls and got to digging, After 24 hours, the researchers returned the gophers to their original habitat and waited for six years.

When they returned, they found 40,000 plants in the areas where the gophers had dug and very little vegetation in nearby areas. But that’s not all. The benefits compounded as the decades passed. “In the 1980s, we were just testing the short-term reaction,” said Michael Allen, a UCR microbiologists. “Who would have predicted you could toss a gopher in for a day and see a residual effect 40 years later?”

I read about pocket gophers shortly after finishing the audio book Atomic Habits. In it, James Clear makes the argument that small shifts in our habits can accrue into massive benefits over time. Case in point, in 2020, I read about the environmental benefits of being vegan. I loved cheese and yogurt too much to become a vegan, but I was open to replacing the milk in my coffee with something plant based. To set myself up for success, I tried a variety of plant milks and landed on oat milk as the one with the least noticeable taste. Fast forward to now and I’ve cut my dairy use in half, and my husband—seeing how much fun I was having— has also made the switch. We’re not vegans, but we use significantly less milk. Small change, big impact.

I love January for resolutions because it’s exciting to start something new with the new calendar. But at Cool It, we’re also all about starting a new habit at any time. My oat milk shift, in fact, happened in summer. What’s most important is that your shift is actionable and sustainable.

Personal Action: Choose one climate focused habit to lean into for 2025.

Ideas:

Start composting
Pick up trash when hiking
Remove a stream of single use plastic from your home
Buy only used clothes for six months or a year
Feed pollinators with a native garden
Get a heat pump and fast.
Bike/walk/use public transportation
Turn down your thermostat a few degrees in winter and up a few degrees in summer
Unsubscribe yourself from all product emails
Shift your toilet paper to a sustainable brand
Replace dairy with oat milk in your daily coffee

Why it matters: Our new habits benefits the environment immediately and accrue over time, and by focusing on one new habit, you increase your odds of success. Best of all, the good environmental habits you create today will become part of your climate shadow. First, you change your toilet paper brand and then you talk about it with your friend and she changes her toilet paper brand (because no one wants to flush old growth forests) and then she tells someone. And there you are, saving acres of old growth forests because of one decision.

Action to Change the System: Choose one legislative change to champion this year and then focus on that legislative change all year long. Call. Write letters. Get friends to call and write letters about that one issue you’re focused on.

How do you find that one issue? The best way I know is to join an environmental organization. The more local the better. If you’re not sure what to join, I invite you to look into the work that Beyond Plastics does, and if you live in New York state, you can help pass the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act.

Why it Matters: There are hundreds of legislative solutions we could champion on any single day. In fact, this coming year, I’ll be highlighting 12 of them. But you’ll accomplish the most if you can dive deep into a single issue. I’m focused on plastic, not because I don’t care about all the other issues, but because reducing plastic waste is personally meaning for me as a parent. Of course, if you send me a petition, I’ll sign it and I do occasionally call reps about other bills, but for the anti-plastic bill, I will be traveling to Albany in January and will lobby reps in person. By focusing on less, I can do more. The same is true for you. Choose the issue that is personally meaningful to you and as you get more involved, you’ll learn who to call and when.

Let’s dream together. What legislative change would you like to see in the upcoming year.

Cool It: Simple Steps to Save the Planet

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