Cold Shower
Apropos of your excellent “Climactic Climate” piece by Alastair Bland (June 12, 2024), I have my own hack for reducing carbon, saving water and improving personal health all at the same time: I’ve stopped using hot water completely in my showering.
I walk straight into a bracing cold shower, giving myself a strong shot of dopamine, which charges me with energy, strength and a sense of well-being. After wetting all over, I turn off the water and soap down, then rinse off with more completely cold water and am out of the shower after about five-plus minutes.
The cold-water-dopamine high lasts me a few hours longer, giving me an excellent start to my day. Further, I have not started up the gas-burning, carbon-producing water heater.
Try it; you will learn to love it as I do! I could never go back to the enervating hot shower. Personal, direct action, controlling our behavior, is empowering and the only immediate way to help stop climate change.
Daniel Keller
San Rafael
Climate Change
Earth burns
in all four corners
melted polar caps cannot quench its thirst
we’ve replaced running rivers
with dumped sewage,
forests lay bare
the remains of chopped down trees
as we suffocate ourselves
animals wander lost
in search of food
that we’ve stolen from them
Earth burns
as we sit in its four corners
continuing to turn over the coals
Bianca May
Rohnert Park
