I really believe in the environmental movement right now - it

In the councils of the elders it was said: do not despise the small flame, for from it a thousand lamps may be kindled. So when Brooke Burke declares, “I really believe in the environmental movement right now—it only takes a little effort to make a big difference,” she speaks an old truth in a fresh voice. Movements are not moved by giants alone; they are carried by many small hands, each placing a stone where a bridge must be. Her words remind us that the earth’s healing does not wait upon perfect saints or perfect plans; it begins wherever a willing heart meets the work at hand.

To name a little effort is to honor the arithmetic of ripples. One household that mends and reuses, one traveler who chooses the slower path, one neighbor who plants a tree where heat has no mercy—each act seems a whisper. Yet whispers become wind when they join. The big difference is not magic; it is multiplication. The soil is patient and keeps the tally: bottles spared from the ditch, watts spared from the grid, liters spared from the pipe. The river, too, remembers; the air grows easier in a thousand small breaths.

Consider a story that has walked from town to town. In a neighborhood scorched by summer, a circle of parents and children began to plant shade trees along the school route—two each season, no more. They watered at dawn, mulched after homework, and kept a ledger of rings and heights. By the third year, the walk to class felt like a green corridor; by the fifth, shopkeepers set benches beneath leaves; by the seventh, the block’s summer peak cooled enough that elders came out at noon. No law changed, no fortune was spent—only little efforts, repeated and shared, and they made a big difference in the temperature of daily life and the temperature of the heart.

The environmental movement, rightly understood, is not a scold but a school of belonging. It teaches the skill of noticing—how to read the sky’s tone, the soil’s mood, the river’s patience. It invites us to trade the spectacle of outrage for the craft of repair. When Burke says she believes in it right now, she calls us to urgency without panic, to actions that can be taken before the kettle boils: refusing the unnecessary, restoring the nearby, respecting the cycles that feed us. The present day is not too late to begin; it is exactly in time for beginnings.

Do not mistake humility for weakness. A mason’s smallest wedge can lift a fallen arch. So with daily choices: a thermostat eased, a shared ride offered, a meal drawn more from plants and less from fire, a week’s trash halved by attention. These are modest wagers placed in the ledger of the living world, and the odds are kind. They teach our hands competence and our minds hope; they knit neighbors into allies; they return dignity to the notion of stewardship, which is simply love made practical.

From this saying, take a clear lesson: the earth is repaired by habits before it is restored by heroes. Begin where your feet stand. Map a radius of care—the rooms you light, the street you sweep, the water you touch, the patch of ground that could bear a tree. Ask of every errand: can I use less, share more, mend longer? Ask of every purchase: will this serve the future or burden it? The big difference is the sum of answers whispered in kitchens and workshops, schools and council rooms, day after faithful day.

Let counsel become action. Choose one little effort to start and keep—carry a bottle you refill, compost what can return, set a weekly ride-share, plant the first of many trees, learn the names of three birds that live with you and protect their seasons. Teach a child to fix something; teach a neighbor what you learned. Celebrate progress like birthdays, not like trophies. In doing these small, steady things, you will discover what Burke promises: that to believe is to begin, that the environmental movement is a choir waiting for your note, and that your little effort—added to ours—can indeed make a big difference, here and now.