But a painful observation made in the op/ed pages is that the general feeling is that this is just how it is; we can't do anything about it. That sense of being able to tackle problems and shape the world and society in a way that benefits us — it is gone.
Many people just submit to the notion that they can't do anything about it. Usually because 'doing something about it' on a personal level means sacrificing luxuries (consume less, buy less, stop flying half way around the world for a holiday twice a year, reduce your energy footprint). Climate change is an inconvenient truth, and a lot of folk seem quite content to just give up — consequences be damned, or rather, ignored.
Some flee into convenient falsehoods. Claiming that, yes, climate change is happening, but we don't have any influence on that, and did you know that [insert denialist trope].
A lot of people do continue to do what they reasonably can — balancing their modern comfortable lifestyle with genuine attempts at affecting change. Even if it means just lowering their own personal footprint and voting for the politicians are at least willing to explore solutions. But it's not enough, and that risks making one feel that all efforts are pointless.
We're clever and resourceful enough as a race to deal with this problem. We're also too self-centred (on a national, tribal, and personal level) to actually do more than take the absolute bare minimum of measures; and even those attempts are watered down time and time again by the leaders of the world's nations. Because either they don't understand the problem, or because they do and don't care.
It's all so very sad.