My opinion might be unpopular, but I think there’s very little worthwhile activity a lone individual can do. Making progress to mitigate climate change will req

My opinion might be unpopular, but I think there’s very little worthwhile activity a lone individual can do. Making progress to mitigate climate change will require long-term coordination of governments, elites, executives and militaries that just hasn’t been supported by the evidence of human sociopolitical history. Meanwhile, climate change is a topic receiving untold attention all the time and hundreds of billions in funding annually. There’s a sincere opportunity cost if you don’t put your attention towards other causes that may be of equal importance in terms of preventable suffering, yet may have much more straightforward solutions due to lessened need for sociopolitical coordination or expensive consumer behavioral changes (such as focusing on simple ways to prevent diseases w/ Against Malaria or Deworm the World or others, or animal welfare charities like The Humane League). However, taking it for granted that one should still focus on climate change, the main things I have come to conclude are: - advocating use of reusable materials for cups, bottles, bags, etc., is a total waste of time & will amount to virtually no positive impact, while risking alienating people away from the cause. - personally conserving in any extreme way is likewise useless and you’ll just be living a worse life for nothing, while also risking alienating people. - most municipal recycling is a total scam, and frankly we’re not in any danger of running out of landfill space. It’s just a feel-good distraction akin to “Showing that you care” by Hanson regarding medical spending. - Finally, it seems that one of the simplest things humans can do to sequester carbon at a global scale is reforestation. While probably it will require governments to do this at the necessary scale, possibly the only useful action an individual can take is to find the most cost-efficient way to donate money to a charity or organization that plants and protects trees at a very large scale.