You can’t. All you can do is realize every trip you take and every bite of beef is yet another drop in the bucket. Every vote for a denialist is probably worth 100s of burgers too, sad to say.
You must choose if your hedonism outweighs the good of our biosphere now and in future. The billions of unborn humans. The trillions of innocent life forms that might go extinct. That blue bird or cardinal in the yard with no AC. The coral reefs decimated. The poor humans suffering tremendously. We have a choice to slightly reduce these things.
> What action will you take to ensure next year it's only 85F?
The time to take that particular action was 20 or 30 years ago. We're not in a position to do a damn thing about next year's heat waves, or the year after that...
What we're talking about now is taking actions that may prevent much larger heat waves 20 years from now
Solar + heat pumps, electric vehicle (I'd rather use public transit, but I live in the wilderness), eating locally-grown seasonal fruits and vegetables, etc.
I walk this walk, bud, but at the same time, whatever I do is completely irrelevant if we don't get off our collective asses and force the governments and corporations to do their part.
At least when your grandkids look up from reading books where you’ve had to explain what ice skating was, and ask you, “What did you do?”, you’ll be able to answer honestly, “I did my best. Sadly kids, most people back then were arseholes.”
We are individually responsible for our actions. Nothing more.
You must choose if your hedonism outweighs the good of our biosphere now and in future. The billions of unborn humans. The trillions of innocent life forms that might go extinct. That blue bird or cardinal in the yard with no AC. The coral reefs decimated. The poor humans suffering tremendously. We have a choice to slightly reduce these things.
Most people choose hedonism.