> The average person isn't the one that needs convincing

If the average person cared enough there would be political pressure on those higher ups. Looking at how people vote (not just thinking about US here) I'm not convinced people care all that much.

Research shows that the US govt is essentially an oligarchy. The opinions of ordinary people simply don't count for the ruling elites. Yes its up to us to make more noise and put pressure on leaders.

Maybe the problem is depending too much on active voting rights. I feel that in the netherlands, if you really want to make a change, you have to form a (one issue) party and convince people.

The impact of a single active voter is not big, and especially in a country where there is limited passive voting, e.g, a 2 party country like the US, it is hard to impact a change.

In this sense, US democracy is broken compared to the Netherlands, as there is very little room for passive voting other than being part of a large existing party.

As I said, not just talking about US here...

In Sweden the green party is dangerously close to getting ejected from the parliament. They need +4% of the votes to stay. The issue for them have been that they had to make a lot of uncomfortable compromises to have any influence at all. Feels like that is the fate of any party that wants to have any kind of progressive agenda. Death by a thousand compromises.

And yet, the difference between Trump or Biden winning was only in the thousands thanks to the current system. That is, it's possible that if the 'rona and Trump's mismanagement of it didn't cause >400.000 deaths, he might've gotten a second term.

Just a note, according to all major sources, Biden won by 7,060,140 votes total. Not saying those 400k deaths may not have influenced certain key swing districts. But there was definitely a much larger gap than 'thousands'.

That's in terms of nationwide total vote count. That's not how the electoral college works though. Biden won by a few thousand votes in a few key swing states. Therefore, it is more accurate to say that Biden won by a few thousand votes.

It's not that people don't care, it's that they've been put into a position where they have to care about other things more. The greatest threat for the average person isn't climate change, it's going broke. When you're living paycheck to paycheck, dumping every penny you earn into rent, food and (in the US) student loans and basic healthcare, are you really going to vote for the people who want to raise your taxes, ban the cheap crap you buy and regulate their employers who will pass the expense down to you in order to keep their margins high?

No, all of those things are immediate dangers to your ability to survive. Add to that the constant threats that terrorists/immigrants/communists... are "coming to destroy our freedoms/way of life" and people have so many more (both real and fake) threats looming over them that the distant and (to some) uncertain threat of climate change is basically at the bottom of their priority list.

Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. The problem here is that most of this issues have no visible direct correlation to our actions as humans, so to convince the average person you have to teach them very, very well. And starting from the very beginning, when they are small children. And that's not quick.

So, while this solution must be pursued for sure, at the same time we need quicker actions on those issues, and the quickest way is to deploy them at the management/politicians/law levels.

> The average person isn't the one that needs convincing

I live near a bus stop, there is a trash can. You'd think people would have the common sense to use it. But not so, they would rather throw it behind the bus shelter.

I picked up three bin-bags of litter last night. I do this daily.