Permanent floating structures are being built in the Pacific Ocean, not with steel and concrete, but with plastic bags coming from your local Safeway. These islands, fashioned by our negligence, are influencing the entire ocean ecosystem with incalculable impacts ranging from intoxicating at least thirty-five percent of all fish with microplastics to altering the habitats in which keystone marine life live in. Though the collapse of marine ecosystems seem far more distant compared to more immediate threats like ISIL, gun violence, or Russian expansionism, the impacts of a deteriorating ecosystem are already being felt all around the world and will pose the greatest threat in the long term. Super storms, droughts, melting glaciers, deforestation, and ocean acidification all have the potential to disrupt, impede, or even destroy commerce, ways of life, and public health.

There is no united front to tackle environmental issues now. The climate change debate emboldens polarized political theatrics that undermine any dialogue towards progress; senators like Jim Inhofe, who threw a snowball to disprove global warming, are living in the pre-industrial era and are funded by coal and oil lobbies to maintain political apathy about these matters. The White House is also contradictory on environmental matters. President Obama impressed environmental lobbies by blocking the Keystone Pipeline, but simultaneously, drastically increased the risk of another BP-size oil spill by opening up the Outer Continental Shelf to offshore oil and natural gas drilling.

Corporations are also some of the staunchest opponents of proposed environmental solutions since being eco-friendly cuts into their profit. When you buy a Chanel handbag, you are also buying the vast area of the Amazon that has been cut down to accommodate for their leather factories. When you drink water from a Dixie cup, you are supporting a five hundred million dollar climate denial fund, created to completely erase from public consciousness the imminence of irreversible ecological damage. Georgia-Pacific, the maker of Dixie cups and toilet paper (the most harmless items in your shopping cart), is owned by Koch Industries, a major financier of the climate change countermovement.

The only groups actually cognizant of environmental harm still miss the mark on what to do next. Eco-pessimists want us to believe that famine, war, and poverty is an inevitable effect of humans’ abuse of the environment. Techno-optimists want us to believe that continuing current consumption is justifiable because eventually there will be “an app for that.” Groups in between these radical poles still face the nexus question for effective environmental activism: how can we come together and change our relationship with the planet from one of continual overexploitation to one of mutual care and preservation? The reality is that this change is hard to come by. Change is the result of ideas and implementation, and as such, a concerted effort by governments, corporations, and individuals to reorient the mindset in which they craft and deploy policies, is essential for any resolution to this ongoing destruction.

Despite political posturing and special interest groups, progress is on the horizon. At the recently concluded Paris climate talks, Kim Jong-Un declared he is going to tackle global warming by himself and has launched a massive “war on deforestation” where all the mountains in North Korea will be covered with trees. His unrealistic vision should not be dismissed; American politicians should be ashamed that the leader of the most backward country in the world cares more and does more about the environment. More importantly, countries agreed upon specific goals for emissions reductions and environmental conservation. These goals are good to have, but empirically, we need efforts from individuals to reach our targets.

Influential members of society should start big and do big things. The Pope’s most recent encyclical on the environment demonstrates the shift in consciousness that many public leaders have—we can’t stay quiet about the growing environmental crisis anymore.

Some philanthropic business leaders are attempting to provide the necessary funding to spur on innovative approaches to solve this major issue. Breaking through the logjam of making environmental concerns a controversy instead of a scientific fact requires substantiated claims that can dispel the myths the climate change countermovement has disseminated. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and many other prominent business leaders have joined forces to create the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, a twenty billion dollar fund meant to provide sufficient start up capital for renewable and reliable energy initiatives. These efforts alone are insufficient to prove the entire world can be fixed with this technology, but they are steps in the right direction.

However, not every person has to be a billionaire to get involved in environmental activism. Small steps are just as important. Green Mountain Power, based in rural Vermont, recognizes that. Its localized approach towards building eco-friendly and low-cost housing should be modeled by those who contend that cost is a barrier to being eco-friendly. Green Mountain Power believes that solar power doesn’t reduce profit and is beneficial in reducing transmission costs during peak demand for their company.

Community-based efforts should incorporate political ecology as a starting point for creating a value system that aligns localized efforts with a social justice framework capable of deconstructing asymmetrical power relations. People of color are disproportionately affected by flawed environmental regulations, and environmental conditions are homogeneous among different social strata. Articulating a new social vocabulary that centers on the environmental consequences of marginalization and discrimination can bring more critical awareness and a stronger grassroots base for change. Making a concerted effort to increase underprivileged groups’ access to renewables and other environmental sustainable resources can help rectify the physical ostracization of these minority groups and bring certain populations out of poverty.

In addition to changing the lexicon for social responsibility to include the environment, we can challenge apathy about the environment by addressing the issue at its core. The key question individuals have to answer is whether their own individualistic worldview conflicts with an egalitarian effort to preserve the ecosystem. Re-educating the public is necessary for people to make more informed decisions about how they affect the environment and to realize that there isn’t an explicit tradeoff between self-preservation and the communitarian goal of saving the planet. That starts by refurbishing schools with green technology and incorporating scientific concepts in personal decision-making to start fostering an ethic of responsibility towards the planet at a young age. But scientific literacy isn’t enough by itself; one can believe in the data supporting anthropogenic climate change but still not do anything about when engaging in civic life. Scientific literacy needs to be promoted in conjunction with a wholesale cultural reorientation. Individuals have a moral imperative to confront political apathy and do whatever they can to save our planet. It is much easier for us to duck our heads down and wait for bad things to come, but each person’s choice—either to engage our societal and moral obligation or to abdicate responsibility—will shape our present and our future.

The broad scientific consensus of scientists is that there will be irreversible environmental harm to all species on earth by 2036 if we do not substantially reduce our current consumption levels and implement technology to offset emissions. At the core of all environmental policy is the idea that each individual has an obligation to our biosphere, and respecting and understanding that symbiotic relationship will enable individuals to preserve it. The missing link in the status quo is willing individuals who have the ability to project their determination and commitment and to inspire a global movement towards sustainable living on Earth. Even though the notion that individuals are the necessary agents for change is an idealized abstraction, citizens definitely can influence corporate goals and political advocacies. Calls to actions and localized efforts by active citizens are the most effective impetus for more cohesive, multidimensional solutions to save our environment. Throughout history, humans have been responsible for the rampant consumption of resources that actively causes irreversible damage for the biosphere. Letting go of prejudices and working together as the world’s only stewards becomes more and more important each day as we inch towards planetary destruction.