individuals matters to us because we can identify with them and we can feel the agony of their situation. We can also make a direct causal link between the protest events of the day and the outcome. This is upsetting. Of course it is. It’s heartbreaking.
On the other hand millions of people are losing their lives or being harmed because of climate change, by rising sea levels or famine or flood or wildfires. We can’t make a causal link between their suffering and any particular failure or action. It’s just too big and too abstract. So we feel helpless and try not to dwell on it.
That’s why we need governments and people with power to tackle it and why corporations need to be held to account - it’s too easy for them to offer greenwash solutions and bargain their way out of the kind of changes that are needed.