A look through the pages of the Butler Eagle — any day will do — shows a list of seemingly overwhelming problems: political division, climate change, fires and floods.

It seems there’s little any one person can do to stem the tide of bad news.

But as a former Cranberry Township resident wrote in his children’s book, we can all take a small step to making at least our corner of the world a better place.

Shane Downing, the son of Dale and Patti Downing and a 2007 graduate of Seneca Valley High School, wrote a book, “The Garden Next Door,” for first- and second-graders, a book inspired by his own love of gardening.

Now living in Oakland, Calif., Downing said he pulled up his all-grass backyard and set about filling it with plants native to California.

This gave him the idea for his book, wherein three children discover why birds, bees and butterflies pass over their yard and visit their neighbors’ yard instead. It’s because their neighbors have turned their backyard into a pollinator garden.

A pollinator garden is designed to contain plants to provide food and shelter to animals that pollinate plants that support the local ecosystem and food web. Pollinator gardens are often made up of native plants, but non-native plants in pollinator gardens can still support local wildlife.

Pollinator gardens have become more important as the bees, butterflies, birds and small animals that move pollen from one flower to another are declining due to loss of habitat, pesticides and urbanization.

Downing’s message is especially relevant now. Recently the International Union for Conservation of Nature added the migratory monarch butterfly to its Red List of Threatened Species.

The monarch is the only butterfly known to make a two-way migration like birds, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Every winter, monarchs that live in the eastern part of North America migrate to the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico, and those in the west migrate to the coastal regions of California, according to the federal agency. Loss of habitat, especially milkweed, is cutting the monarch population.

Monarch larvae eat only milkwood plants, and milkwood is the only plant on which the monarch will lay its eggs.

A simple fix is to cut down on the use of pesticides around the yard and plant milkweed to create a monarch “way station” to give the butterflies a place to lay eggs and their larvae a free lunch.

It’s a small step, but enough small steps can add up to a big and positive change.

— EKF