NASHVILLE — If you’re reading this, you’re probably among the Americans who don’t get their news from conservative echo chambers, so you’ve probably made some changes in your habits of late. Chances are you feel pretty good about them. You won’t save the planet all by yourself, or make the country a more equitable place, but, hey, doing something is always better than doing nothing.

You’re covering your leftovers with beeswax wraps instead of plastic, and you never drink from a straw anymore. You’re skipping the Roundup and pulling the weeds in your garden instead. You’re careful about how you use pronouns, making no assumptions. You’re writing to your elected officials to demand affordable health care and sensible gun laws and a humane immigration policy and full enfranchisement of your fellow citizens. You’re giving as much as you can to advocacy organizations that work full time to protect the environment, the poor, the victims of prejudice, the rights of women.

There’s also a good chance that every single time you’ve made one of these changes, someone you know, someone who shares your concerns, has informed you that such changes are not enough. Someone has looked at the brand-new hybrid in your driveway and wondered why you didn’t go for the fully electric vehicle instead. Someone has looked at your fully electric vehicle and informed you that the power company in your area still relies in part on fossil fuels. Someone has seen the solar panels on your roof and informed you that you’ve undone all the good of those panels merely by taking that business trip to London. Haven’t you heard what air travel does to your carbon footprint?

You mention at dinner that you’ve switched to grass-fed beef, and someone at the table will inform you that anyone who’s truly concerned would have given up meat entirely. You switch to organic produce, and someone will remark on how organic farming will never be efficient enough to feed a growing population, and of course it does nothing to address the problem of food deserts in poor communities, either. You comment enthusiastically that the dryer balls you’re using have really cut down on the amount of time — and thus energy — it takes to dry your clothes, and someone superior to you is bound to observe that a clothesline would work just as well and use no energy at all.