DogeIsSandvich

How can the average citizen help combat Climate Change? I want to help, but it all feels overwhelming and I don't know what to do or where to begin.

I think everyone who knows that manmade Climate Change is real is something to be feared. That's not necessarily bad, however, because it shows that we are naturally aware of a very real threat. This, in turn, leads to action to avoid the said threat. Whether that be spreading awareness, protesting for change, or leading onto a more sustainable lifestyle; more people are waking up to the Climate Crisis by the day now that the threat is growing in severity by the day. Even if you don't fear Climate Change, action is still required in order to ensure a future where life on Earth continues, everyone needs to play a part.

I'm not a scientist or anything, but I think I can answer this question for you based on what I know. Climate Change on the earth has always been a natural occurrence and always will be. When the dinosaurs were still alive during the Cretaceous period, the earth's climate then was naturally torrid (very hot) due to the abundant volcanic activity caused by more frequent tectonic plate shifting. As we know, volcano eruptions emit greenhouse gas emissions like Carbon Dioxide, and if a ton of volcanos erupt frequently over a long period of time then it can cause the earth's climate to naturally change to host hotter temperatures slowly. This is why the Arctic as we know it did not exist during the Cretaceous period.
Over the course of tens of millions of years, after the infamous Chicxulub meteorite crashed into the earth, caused a nuclear winter, and wiped out the dinosaurs; volcanic activity slowly became less apparent after jumpstarting life on Earth once again, which means the earth's climate was becoming colder slowly. This of course leads to the iconic Arctic forming as well as ice sheets and glaciers. During pre-Industrial Revolution times, the earth's climate was continuing to drop in temperature slowly, that is until we found a way to create artificial volcanoes in a sense. Burning fossil fuels, coal, natural gases, and oil all emit greenhouse gas emissions like volcanic eruptions. But the difference between volcanic eruptions and the burning of various fossil fuels is the amount of greenhouse gas emissions emitted over a period of time. Currently, we're burning an ungodly amount of fossil fuels at a rate so fast that we're both outgrowing and outpacing volcanic activity in the extreme.

Think about how it took tens, hundreds of millions of years every time the earth's climate changed to host different living conditions while simultaneously giving the chance for everything living a chance to adapt. It only took us 200-ish years to start setting the world on fire, changing living conditions so drastically so quickly for so much wildlife that they can't even get a chance to adapt to the new way of life coming, this includes us, humans. Look up the hockey stick graph on Climate Change, it will show you how much the current human activity is affecting the earth's climate in such a short period of time.

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TL;DR: Climate Change has always been a natural phenomenon and always will be, but human activity can and is currently altering the pace at which it occurs. The rate at which we are doing so makes the dreaded apocalyptic future we all fear a more feasible reality by the day.