Climate change is happening now and it’s happening faster and much worse than predicted. It’s threatening to the world we know and everything in it. It’s already killing people. This is beyond doubt or argument.

We have just years to change course. If we manage it, we could save the world, at least the one we recognise. Realistically, the prognosis at the moment is that we won’t manage to steer the ship around in time.

So why have we, as people with everything to lose, not acted sooner?

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We have a global climate agreement and we know what needs to happen. This is a problem we know how to solve. But we aren’t acting with anywhere close to the urgency fit for the situation. Renewable energy is cheaper than the bad stuff anyway. Australia is a rich country with the means and the smarts to take on big challenges, so why aren’t we doing it? What will it take to get people to respond in a fitting way?

It’s not surprising that in response to a problem this huge, this existential, people seek out something they can do, from using a keep cup to being fastidious with the recycling. It makes us feel better, it gives us something tangible to do, it stops us from despairing. But we need to admit that even if every plastic bottle and tin can ever produced was recycled, we’d still be on track for catastrophic climate change. No matter how many plastic straws are declined or ocean plastic turned into shoes, every indication points to our children never knowing coral reefs, the Arctic melting and the seas rising.

It is liberalism’s most dangerous lie that an individual’s action can solve problems of this scale.

So what should we be doing?

Stop Adani. Do not let that mine go ahead. My baby who has not figured out that a triangle block goes through the triangle hole could probably figure this one out. We need less pollution in order to keep the world’s ecosystems functional. Digging more new coal to burn is bad maths. We cannot let new coalmines happen. Join a local action group, meet your MP, flick some cash to the people working on this full-time, lock yourself to a bulldozer – this one is really important and there’s a movement set up ready for people to join in and get involved.

More important than any one person’s composting is government policy. Shortly after Australia signed the Paris agreement, Queensland relaxed its land-clearing laws, wiping out any reduction in our pollution that we had committed to in front of the world.

We have a coal-smooching, wilfully ignorant prime minister and a government refusing to take on any climate leadership because it doesn’t fit in with their ideology. Conservatives began the conservation movement, but this current crop of conservative politicians are trying to keep coal plants like Liddell open that even the coal companies want closed.

Australia does not have an energy policy. This is not due to lack of knowledge or understanding. It’s due to lack of leadership and the influence of people who stand to make a buck now and will probably not be alive to see the worst of catastrophic climate change.

That’s not something you can reason with. They’re simply not up to the job.

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So people need to act collectively. The first step is getting involved in this year’s election, when governments are most susceptible to influence. The most important thing we can do is try and influence government decisions. We urgently need to stem the flow of climate pollution into the atmosphere and absorb the pollution already out there on a scale that individuals can’t muster.

When we sort our waste in our homes or remember our reusable shopping bags it’s helpful, but in itself it is not up to the challenge of stopping climate change. If we are going to respond to the problem at the scale and urgency that reality demands, we need to do more. School children going on strike demanding climate action provide a shining example of disruptive, urgent, agenda-setting activism. They acted like their lives depend on it – we all should.

• Emily Mulligan is head of campaigns at GetUp