Sun-filled summers with friends, family, backyard cricket, burnt sausages and sunburn. To build new memories, last week, I purchased a battery mower. As with any significant change in long-held practice, the purchase came with some ambivalence. Despite an awareness of the pollution associated with small motors, I have long relied on noisy, smelly, oily and heavy push mowers and brush-cutters to maintain our garden.

After all, this is what I have known, and I love the pleasure of transforming unkempt spring grass into passable lawn.

The mower, purchased in Wodonga, is battery powered, which I am in the fortunate position of being able to charge with solar power. This all adding symmetry to the process of cutting grass, itself solar powered.

It seems I will need a second battery to mow our lawn in one hit, but these can also be used in other compatible appliances. So, there it is. A simple change in thinking (and saving of money to make a new purchase) has enabled another reduction in my day-to-day reliance on fossil fuels.

I have replaced an ageing series of unreliable, clunky 'heritage' mowers with a smart device. It is made of metal, super quiet, near maintenance-free and the fuel is the sun.

But more, it is these fossil fuels which are so intimately linked with the dramatic escalation of human-caused climate change, the effects of which creep ever deeper into our souls, community's and political lives.

While the complexity of a meaningful response to climate change is hard to fathom, the day-to-day acts are so very real.

Each time you turn off a light, make a purchase, replace an appliance, ride rather than drive, choose an electricity retailer, select a bank, designate a superannuation provider or even make structural decisions about your garden, you are embedding another response to the wicked nature of climate change.

Will the decisions you make aggregate to a robust and ethical response to a problem almost beyond comprehension?

My eight-year-old now tells me I will have to fight him to use the mower.

Good. And we must all fight to make sure all eight-year-olds grow to a safe climate future.