What we must do next is whatever we should have been doing all along.

We have to lift each other up and support each other: practice equality and fairness, listen especially to those who have too long gone unheard, make sure everyone has food, housing, and healthcare. Not just because it is the right thing to do, but because the people who are alive right now are the people we need to work on the problem of climate change. This means working to end racism, sexism, classism, colonialism.

We will need to be "empathetic and resilient," as Kimberly Nicholas puts it in her book Under the Sky We Make, and teach children those values, too, because we are already forced to adapt to climate change even while we fight it.

Learn to identify the plants and wildlife native to your area. Learn what you can eat and harvest sustainably. Learn what used to live there and no longer does. Observe ecological changes. Be sensitive to what is being lost and also to what is being recovered or rebuilt.

We can invent new, more appropriate language, as you did in this article. Not "environmentalism" or "climate change" but "look at that 50-foot wall of fire," for example. Whatever accurately describes the situation, delivers information, and recommends action. Part of the reason we are collectively in this situation is that our language has assumed we may exploit the Earth and not worry about consequences.

We can reduce our consumption. Fly less. Drive less. Organize a carpool. Eat plant-based meals, and help someone else to enjoy a plant-based meal. Avoid buying things we don't need. Fossil fuel-based industries have to be ended--the sooner the better--and that decision needs to be made from the top, which most of us have no control over. However, as individual consumers, we can make the transition easier on ourselves by beginning to live today as if those industries were already bygones. If we can live without them in five years, we can live without them now. Yes, we will need infrastructure for whatever lifestyle will replace our current lifestyle, but meanwhile we can try to adjust on our own. Until governments and corporations give us the infrastructure, we can do it ourselves in community.

If you can work or volunteer, find out which companies and organizations are part of the solution. Get a job with them. Volunteer for them. That's how we devote real power to this.