qtd in: Lyman, Francesca, Irving Mintzer, Kathleen Courrier, and James Mackenzie. The Greenhouse Trap. Boston: Beacon Press, 1990.
Unlike ordinary economical dilemmas, our energetically inefficient ways cannot be written off with a check. Ultimately the problem is going to be solved by a lot of individual citizens. "It will be action at the grass roots that moves Congress," according to Rep. Claudine Schneider (qtd. in Lyman et al. 109). People can adopt many energy-saving tactics, including trying to reduce pollution from their cars and homes. For example, each time a homeowner replaces a 75-watt incandescent bulb with an 18-watt flourescent bulb, 400 pounds of coal are saved annually (Newton 23). Also, improved insulation in homes and office building s could reduce energy use in the United States by 50-75 percent (Newton 24). Moreover, people could become informed consumers, buying products that don't contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. "Even before the regulations on aerosols came into effect, the market dropped by half," reported Richard Benedick, chief US negotiator at the Montreal Protocol meeting, "Never underestimate the power of the American consumer" (Lyman et al 109). These initial steps by the individual can provide "an ounce of prevention," which, as Ben Franklin once said, "is worth a pound of cure" (qtd in Claudine Schneider 68).
Human activities have always affected the composition of the atmosphere and continue to do so today. Despite bureaucratic procrastination on the issue, global warming is not just a far off concept that might occur in a greenhouse geosphere in future centuries. The occurrences that scientists say can happen during global warming are indeed happening. Global warming is affecting our weather today with the most extreme and analogous events in studied meteorological history. If indeed global warming is upon us, the questions are: How long will it be before concrete and unavoidable evidence of it is plainly visible, and are we willing to wait? Technology and science aren't the answers. People are. You and I and the actions that we take or don't take are going to determine our environmental future. Concluding in the words of Chief Seattle of the Iroquois tribe in 1854, "Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself" (qtd. in Lyons 271).