thinking and acting green

Now that the semester is winding down, I'm beginning to read more eco-literature in preparation for the theme next year. Last night I was reading some of Wendell Berry's essays, and found quite a few gems of wisdom to pass along. For those of you unfamiliar with Berry, you can find more information on him here. Berry himself does not have a website because he famously rejects computer technology, and is critical of technology and industrialization. 

This passage is from his essay "Think Little," and it encourages us to make little changes in our own lives to have a considerable environmental impact, rather than waiting for big ideas and bureaucracies to make changes. Enjoy!

"For most of the history of this country, our motto, implied or spoken, has been Think Big. I have come to believe that a better motto, and an essential one now, is Think Little. That implies the necessary change of thinking and feeling, and suggests the necessary work. Thinking Big has led us to the tow biggest and cheapest political dodges of our time: plan-making and law-making. The lotus-eaters of this era are in Washington, D.C., Thinking Big. Somebody comes up with a problem, and somebody in the government comes up with a plan or a law. The result, mostly, has been the persistence of the problem, and the enlargement and enrichment of the government. But the discipline of thought is not generalization; it is detail, and it is personal behavior. While the government is 'studying' and funding and organizing its Big Thought, nothing is done. But the citizen who is willing to Think Little, and, accepting the discipline of that, to go ahead on his own, is already solving the problem. [...] A man who is willing to undertake the discipline and difficulty of mending his own ways is worth more to the conservation movement than a hundred who are insisting merely that the government and the industries mend their ways. " 

Berry, Wendell. "Think Little." The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry. Ed. Norman Wirzba. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 2002. 81-90.

What do YOU think about Berry's ideas? Can individual action make a big impact? Is there value in Thinking Little over Thinking Big? Do we need to think BOTH Little and Big?