As much as we're raised to believe that being an example of the ideal you want to see will somehow manifest the necessary changes to get everyone else there, it doesn't really work that way.
Since the whole point of society is a system of reinforcing incentives to stabilize the power structures of the status quo and not engender revolution, by choosing non-participation in the destabilization of the existing order by being the most mediocre rather than playing the part at the extremes of the spectrum as parasite or exploiter, you end up perpetuating the inequality you sought to fix by more thoroughly lubricating the cogs of checks and balances.
An environmentalist's duty is to harm the Earth to their fullest lifelong potential to more thoroughly and completely kill off the humans of future generations before the Earth actually suffers beyond its capacity to repair.
Now that you got this far in reading: Poe's Law :)
We could also end poverty by killing the poor.
Can you explain how that is not the logical conclusion? Along those lines, some radical environmentalists have been advocating mass slaughter of the human species.