What you do today, to fight global warming, will matter for centuries.  We have only about a decade to really begin reducing worldwide greenhouse emissions; we have to do what it takes to make this happen, and we have to do it now.  Imagine if Americans took the fight against global warming as seriously as they took the threat of Nazism during World War II.  Millions of ordinary people in the US mobilized during the 1940's to support the war effort, consuming fewer materials so that resources could be use for war equipment, planting vegetable gardens at home so crops could go to feeding armies in Europe, and driving much less so that gasoline could go to powering the war.  US citizens were encouraged to carpool with the admonishen, "If you ride alone, you ride with Hitler."  All of these practices, if taken up today, would help to stop global warming.  The difference, of course, is that instead of using the resources we save to power a war, we should refrain from consuming them at all; we must keep fossil fuels in the ground where they belong, instead of burning them.  We have to take the strain off rainforests and other ecosystems that absorb carbon from the atmosphere.

Individual choices matter in this effort.  It will be neccessary for everyone who cares about the environment to choose responsibility over pleasure in coming years.  My own family just made the decision that instead of spending money on a weekend vacation by car - which would add carbon to the air - we will invest in an Energy Star washing machine, and reduce our household's carbon footprint.  Choices like this do matter.  So replace the incandescent lightbulbs in your house with more efficient fluorescent bulbs.  Drive less.  Consume less.  Unplug electric appliances when they aren't in use.  This is a fight we can win, but we must approach it with as much determination as the generation of Word War II approached the struggle against Facism.  Can we triumph over global warming?  It's up to each of us to show that we can.