”When I was 16 years old I was taught in school about climate change; warned about the dangers of companies having monopolies and also warned about the dangers of lobbying. I was very naive at the time; as I felt that everyone was sharing the same experience as me and that my generation was going to help the world make a better place.

Same here, brother. I realized that climate change is an existential threat to us as a child. Why would anybody put all this time and energy and effort into drilling for oil when it causes grievous harm to wildlife, indigenous monuments, the water we all drink, etc, etc, etc?

I don’t even think the answer is universally greed. I think defeatism is a large part of it. It’s too big of a problem, my vote won’t do anything, the parties are all the same, whatever. People tell themselves all sorts of lies to justify looking sadly at the window, and wishing things would just POOF their way better. But they won’t. It takes work: consistent, thankless, under-recognized, work.

But even the people who still care, or say they do, suck down psyops like there’s no tomorrow (Bernie or Bust, etc) and run into the weeds with uselessly divisive bullshit. I’m gay and I see a lot of people trying to split hairs about who really gets to call themself a lesbian or how to censor fiction when I KNOW we’ve all got real problems.

”Humanity, over all, seems to be content sticking their heads in the sand, ignoring all of the problems we’re facing, just so we can dance and be happy.”

I’ll push back on that the tiniest bit. Are these people dancing and being happy? Lots of people are getting coal miner’s lung, and they’re not dancing. Lots of people are doing this just for a power trip over people they see is less deserving, and they’re not … exactly dancing and being happy either.

The reason I chose that part to challenge is because I think there is this idea that a more sustainable future will only involve sacrifices. That the only benefit we get is the planet being stable and healthier and more livable. That would be enough on its own, obviously. But it’s not the whole picture either. Better public transit means I can read and screw around on Reddit when I would be de-icing my windshield and looking for parking and dealing with insurance, nevermind actually driving - for one small example. And those are the kinds of things you can use to get hesitant people onboard. The well-being of the planet and future generations is its own worthy goal. But it’s distant and nebulous and so hard for people to grasp. “Do you want a shorter commute or a longer commute?” is very reachable and relevant and concrete.

As for what you can do… That’s a hard question to answer because it depends on YOU and what you can do. Some people have great opportunities at work to make a targeted push for a small policy change that adds up over the course of thousands of plastic utensils or commutes or whatever. Some people can run for office, join or start some council that protects local resources.

I try to use reusable grocery bags and things, but I realize that my own individual actions aren’t going to save the world. We need coordinated changes on a larger scale with companies and governments.

One famous success story: McDonald’s hamburgers used to come in these little foam plastic clamshell things. A group of activists - many of them teenagers! - was able to convince McDonald’s to voluntarily switch to paper instead, which produced much less non-biodegradable waste and made a worldwide dent in the global use of petroleum. Dolphin-safe tuna has a similar story.

There are still things you can do, government be damned. People love it when you make things easy for them so if you want some organization to do something differently, be ready with some suggestions for what they should do instead, numbers and data included. They might just take you up on it.