Week 4 question

I believe that Michael Maniates is right on in his argument. As he stated, taking the “easy steps” will at best reduce our environmental impact which is out of control. If, as celebrities suggest, we simply reuse and recycle, the world will continue to suffer due to our consumption. Moreover, it will be our children who are left with the bill from our $5 radios in the form of an uninhabitable planet.
On the other hand, I do believe that the average citizen will have to give up some of the luxuries we have taken for granted for decades. If everyone uses electricity use by doing simple things such as turning off computers when not in use, reducing use of gasoline, and turning off air conditioning for part of the day, we can big changes. The problem is that these things have not been promoted or enforced by the government. If the government had given the option of catalytic converters, no one would have used them because they would not have benefited the individual. I believe Collective problems require collective solutions.
He mentions a “fundamental change” in our energy which in the long run will likely be the most important challenge for Americans. Although up until recently, the dominance of fossil fuels in the energy market has never been questioned, melting ice caps and strange weather combined with the likes of Hugo Chavez have made changes in energy a political issue. Some politicians have even mentioned similar strategies to the ones mentioned in the article.