Not just Saranac Lake, either. The entire planet. It would cost little or nothing, and it’s easy.

It’s this: undertake a concerted effort to reduce emission of greenhouse gases to zero.

By concerted I mean all-hands-on-deck, communal, organized, intense, and well publicized.

For 10 years, the English village of Ashton Hayes (population about 1,000) has been striving for net-zero emissions of one greenhouse gas -?carbon. The result at this point is a 24 percent percent reduction. It is expected to reach 80 percent when solar panels are installed on public buildings.

Ashton Hayes has benefited in many ways from the effort.

It’s a project the village residents have “fun” pursuing. It has fostered a sense of civic pride, comradery, Swiss-like we’re-all-in-this-together citizenship. It was that way from the beginning, when nearly 650 people – more than half its population showed up for the kickoff meeting.

A couple of weeks ago, the Ashton Hayes story was featured in the New York Times. It has been reported in other media outlets as well. Individuals and towns all over the world have expressed interest in duplicating the project. That tiny village is world famous. Saranac Lake could be, too.

Nothing would more effectively stimulate tourism than making a concerted effort to become greenhouse-gas neutral.

Apart from serving our short-term self-interest, we would be helping to slow climate change. Saranac Lake alone can’t stop global warming, but we can do our part. And it would be the right thing to do.

Here’s a starter list for what each of us could do. No one can do everything on the list, of course. Even Bill McKindrick takes an airplane now and then. The goal (easily achievable) would be for each of us to make whatever behavioral changes we find to be not excessively demanding. In addition, it would be helpful, perhaps necessary, to have regular, support-group type meetings to organize our efforts, encourage each other, generate new ideas, and celebrate how we in this small village are giving the whole world a better chance of survival.

1. Drive less. Walk or cycle more. Mow your lawn less often, if you use a power mower. Better, switch to a hand mower. Or plant ground cover that doesn’t require mowing. Use a broom instead of a leaf blower. Use a shovel not a snow thrower. Each of these easy changes would reduce the amount of CO2 being released into the atmosphere as a result of burning fossil fuels.

2. Use Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs. They are far more efficient than incandescent bulbs. They cost a little more, but because they use less electricity and last longer, they save money in the long run. Annoy your family (like I do) by being obsessive about turning off lights when they are not necessary. Buy only Energy Star rated appliances. Stop using a clothes dryer; hang your laundry outside in summer, inside on a rack in winter.

3. Turn your thermostat down. Even a degree or two will help. Seal and insulate your home.

4. Use water efficiently. (It takes lots of energy to treat, transport, and heat water.) Shorten bath time, turn off the tap when brushing your teeth or shaving, fix all drips. Wash clothes in cold water; they get just as clean. (I couldn’t tell the difference during a year and a half of cold-water laundering when I lived in Hong Kong.)

5. Compost everything that can be composted. Maintaining landfills requires energy, and landfills produce greenhouse gases. Besides that, there is a good deal of inexplicable satisfaction in turning potato peelings and grass clippings into soil.

6. Recycle as if your life depended on it. To some extent it does. Buy recycled goods whenever possible. Try to find a way back to the “make do and mend” way of living that we knew in the early part of the twentieth century.

7. Choose a renewable energy option from National Grid. Consider adding solar panels and geothermal to your house.

8. Eat less meat. Since we don’t raise cattle and hogs in Saranac Lake the resulting reduction in greenhouse gases would not be credited to Saranac Lake directly, but a reduction is a reduction.

9. Plant a tree. A tree is an effective and long-lasting C02 offset.

10. Urge the village administration to purchase electric or hybrid vehicles and install solar and geothermal systems in all public buildings.

These are short-hand suggestions. A newspaper column doesn’t afford enough space to go into details or address the particulars of why and how.

Nor have I included many of the less obvious benefits of some of these changes. For example, walking more and using a broom instead of a leaf blower, a shovel instead of a snow thrower is good exercise, and that helps combat overweight and improves cardiovascular condition.

The list is far from exhaustive. If you have read to this point, other helpful measures have probably occurred to you along the way. Write them down and send them to this newspaper as a letter to the editor. The email address is Petercrowley@adirondackdailyenterprise.com

Wouldn’t it be gratifying to have a sign at the entry to the village that reads something such as, “Welcome to Saranac Lake. We reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by X percent in 2017”? Wouldn’t it be gratifying to continue reducing that amount year after year? What a party we could have on change day. Write the editor with your idea for the sign.

One last thing. Or maybe I should say one first thing. Never, ever let climate change skepticism go unchallenged. Read up on the science of the issue, if you’re not already on top of it, and argue knowledgably. Human behavior is the primary cause of global warming; that is a fact, not an opinion. It is also a fact that failing immediate all-out effort, life on earth will all-too-soon become horrific.

Paul Willcott publishes somewhat longer essays at www.geezerblockhead.com.