[saidajigumi]

Ultimately this comes down to influencing public policy to really move the needle – something that very few individuals have a particular competency in. Policy, because it can influence far far more people than active individual choices (most of which are just easy defaults), and because it has access to a level of influence that individuals simply do not E.g. industrial and manufacturing processes – which may or may not be visible in the "marketplace" and can a priori constrain what individual choices might even exist.

And therein lies the rub: individuals by the numbers don't have competency at the policy level because that's an artifact of collaboration and organization.

Most of us don't and can't work at the scope of policy. Modern society puts interested individuals at a huge disadvantage here. E.g. it's far, far easier for even a relatively small business to support someone in part- or full- time policy related efforts. Lobbying, marketing, supporting candidates, etc. Large companies may have entire divisions dedicated to such. The "rest" of us largely have to work for those entities for a living, don't have the required expertise, don't have the luxury of spending hours a week on policy change, and/or don't even have the spare income to donate to a suitable policy organization to act in our proxy, if one even exists.

Note: I don't think the above spells gloom and doom. Instead, I think this line of thinking is part of an growing awareness, a wake-up-call: that society will need to change if humanity is to adapt and survive.