Not OP, but I think there are very important environmental impacts that are not related to climate change. Take, for example, plastic in the sea - clearly a big issue for the environment, but addressing climate change will not impact this at all.

Other examples include destruction of habitats, NO2 in the air, dumping waste in nature and rivers, lead that gets into nature etc.

I've found that 'climate change' activism leads with wealth redistribution, social justice, and even socialism in a general sense. Biodiversity activism, on the other hand, tends to organize around reducing anthropogenic sources of CO2/CH4, establishing wildlife corridors, protecting watersheds, and so forth.

Both are valid and there's obviously a lot of welcome, positive alignment.

How are sea microplastics and climate change not related? Both involve fossil fuel materials being left somewhere they shouldn't when we are "done" with them.

In one case the fossil fuels contribute to climate change, in the other case it doesn’t.

Let me say that again: why don't you think the plastics are changing the climate?

Because as long as you don't burn them, they don't release any gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect. Could you explain any mechanism that make plastics in nature contribute to the climate catastrophe?

They are both under a broader banner of pollution.

And?

> climate change is by far the greatest threat to the environment

The effects of climate change will be uneven across humanity, and many of the worst effects might be second-order (e.g. instability caused by mass migration).

There are other types of environmental change, like accumulation of so-called "forever chemicals", which have the potential to have a more direct effect on the entire human population, and potentially over a shorter time period than climate change. It's not clear to me that climate change is the greatest threat we face.

Not OP, but was glad they piped up :)

My vague concern is that overly emphasizing "climate change" means all these brains are thinking on just one small bit of surface of this larger project. We talk a ton about carbon because it's the tangible thing that brownian motions equally through the atmosphere and we can undeniably quantify, but the whole ship leaks across a number of dimensions. We need eyes and minds on all the little edges of the larger wicked problem: both convincing and creating fellow humans that we can be happy and healthy without unconstrained growth. There's a lot of baggage to work through.

The sheer eighth grade math of it is that we can't be anything but cancer or conquerors (at whatever scale) unless we get that under control on this finite planet <3