In short, we aren’t on track to an apocalyptic extinction, and the new head is concerned that rhetoric that we are is making people apathetic and paralyzes them from making beneficial actions.
He makes it clear too that this doesn’t mean things are perfectly fine. The world is becoming and will be more dangerous with respect to climate. We’re going to still have serious problems to deal with. The problems just aren’t insurmountable and extinction level.
That’s a good and healthy way to approach this. Nicely put.
Bettering the world’s situation is a legislative/political issue. Bettering you and your immediate community is something you can help with, even if it’s only at the margins.
The problem with all this, however, is that there are a lot of the things that you can do to help your personal situation that are definitely not helping the overall situation. For example installing air conditioning, watering your lawn, etc. They might make things more comfortable for you, but they’re by no means better for the world. We still need to incentivize the right things through the right tax breaks and financial/industry incentives, which lead us back to politics being the actual thing that we need to make meaningful personal and global change possible.