First of all, don't give up too easy. It's a lot easier to say: we are screwed, my contribution will not change anything. This is wrong approach to the problem, changes start from somewhere.

Imagine the startup, who don't have customers yet and just gives up (because what's point, they will not come). The more traction they have, the more snowballish it become.

How regular people can help?

1) Try to use renewable materials around you (bags, not plastic bags, use the fabric)

2) Sort the garbage (don't know about US), but in Europe this is real thing (organic, general, electronics, etc)

3) Try to limit the car or any fossil fuel usage in your household.

3.1) Don't have 1 car per each family member

4) Don't buy and throw away clothes too often, if you do, return to second hand

5) Use energy saver functions at it's max

6) Stop searching for someone to blame and "Just DO IT!" (c) Shia

How IT people can help?

1) Write less energy consumption programs and servers, they eat too much now

2) Move toward real innovations in "green" tech, not the pseudo ones to collect money and bail

Samsung once done the big screen phone, how the iPhone users called them? "Shovel" phones / users. Then came this "innovative" Apple iPhone with the same big screen and it suddenly became "mainstream". Don't be afraid to be first in something good, especially if this is a future of your planet.

Don't expect that someone will make this problems "go away" or people fly away from here. Humans managed to make orbit a trash can too, so we don't go anywhere in far future.