Nzen already responded to this pretty thoroughly. I'll just add two points: 1) Individual good actions virtually never outweigh large-scale bad actions, but t

Nzen already responded to this pretty thoroughly. I'll just add two points: 1) Individual good actions virtually never outweigh large-scale bad actions, but the world is actually worse off if individuals do not take those little positive actions. Little polluter + big polluter yields more pollution than big polluter. 2) Taking the small positive actions is actually a lot of what helps people work on the huge, difficult problems. Humans are more effective when our psychology is a unified self rather than in conflict with itself, and taking small, positive concrete steps helps us keep ourselves in alignment with our big-picture goals and ideals. I guess both of those fit into the abstract observation that you're bifurcating - people don't have to choose between individual concrete actions and contributing to policy efforts and other high-level approaches. By all means, if you see someone explicitly saying they choose one at the expense of the other, say something. When they don't say that, though, don't assume that's what they're doing.