Thanks for all of you participating here and welcome all others for sharing thoughts and emotions on this topic, even if not conforming to the majority of opinions here.
In terms of the M. Scott Peck(therapist, author) quote: "Emotional sickness is avoiding reality at any cost. Emotional health is facing reality at any cost." we're not that bad here. Everyone here seems to at least sense that there is a big problem here.
For my side I'm not a globetrotter myself. Not travelled much. Just reading and watching what's easy to get. And my view is the same as Neos in terms of the state of the planet: We treat the planet with unbelievable ignorance that our actions will ever have an effect. I think it's easy to get an overview of the current state of the planet by just googling around and on the other side it's in fact very difficult to ignore all unpleasant information about that passing by by accident.
Knowing is one part - Acting the other part. As the above mentioned author also said, "the greatest weakness of all humans is lazyness". (He used the word "original sin"). And a controverse person nowadays - the girl Greta Thunberg - said(whether it came out of herself or she heard it from others) "There are people with more guilt and others with less". Yes, I think that's the case. There are people that actively pushing for example fracking(pumping masses of extremely toxic chemicals into the ground), dumping nuclear wast just into the see, willingly try to enslave people through the use of AI, ... . That's indeed a big part of responsibility of a few here. But since we all know the crimes being done and know we are using the products(gasoline, food, electricity, ...) nevertheless, we have have a little share of responsibility ourselves. With some thousands people doing bad things in this world and some billions of the high industrialized countries silently acknowledging and supporting the action of the former, we see that the former would not get away with it or even economically survive without the laziness of the rest.
The lazyness from my side is: This whole thing is so big, I feel overwhelmed by it. What can I - this little human do? It's so ardous. I do not want to fight other people. There are so big instituions I feel so powerless against. I have enough tasks myself, I can not handle much more. I have to care about myself. Everyone has its only set of problems and is not enthused to get more.
Climate change is only one of the bullets approaching us. And it's not a quick one. But with every day passing by without actions the bullet is harder to avoid. At the moment we got the clarity that we got an average level of changes and impacts on our lives and on the production of the things we need. In about 10 years or so without action the game is over. We will no longer be able to handle things coming in about 20-100 years. Hunger, Violence, War.
We are in a comparatively good position of beeing able to push things forward. We have no lack of things of our needs in live. Everything is still there. We have spare time and a high level of freedom . For me the first thing in action is to get myself into action. And I call upon you, successful and highly intelligent people. Many of you accomplished so much in life. Incredible things. Things they may never have imagined they would. Will you take the challenge? If we fail so what? But if we didn't even try? What heritage do you like leave to our successors? Uhm, sorry about the mess we left to you!
The talk of XR talks about "virtue ethics". Do the right thing, even if there's no hope for change.
If masses of people change from serving profit to serving the change towards a life-supporting society, it will make a difference.
And it begins with me and you.
Update
Interestingly Frank Capra, the famous film directory(1897-1991) made a movie with warnings more than 60 years ago, stating the dangers clearly. Here's the one minute extract from the "unchained goddess(1958)"
YouTube
Update II
The video on taxing co2 usage from wisecracker was very interesting and I think it will help. And I think it will need additional persuation for politicians to do it and citizens to accept it, too.