Today’s babies will live on a planet without an Arctic. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently announced there is only a dozen years left before the Earth’s temperature rises a few degrees, after which the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people will significantly worsen.

The range of the mosquitoes that carry dengue fever, zika, and malaria is already spreading. Global crop yield is down. And according to a recent editorial in the Lancet, heatstroke and extreme weather will continue to increase. Multiple cities will be uninhabitable.

Global warming is not a new topic, but the dire worldwide ramifications are in greater focus recently as new reports get released. People are talking about global warming more.

But the conversations typically have three parts. First, we recite the litany of disasters. Then, people start talking about optimism or pessimism. And third, they settle on either hope or despair, and in either case, they resolve to take no action.

This is a conversational script for a bygone era. At this point, the only way we could even theoretically avert the worst of global warming’s consequences would be for the whole world, led by the largest carbon emitters like the U.S., to immediately take unprecedented and economically painful action to radically reduce our carbon emissions. Instead, the rate of emissions continues to skyrocket.

So next time the topic of global warming comes up, I say we skip the part where we talk about hope and despair and jump straight to the only thing it makes any sense to talk about: action. Because when it comes right down to it, don’t we have to try to prevent catastrophe whether there is any hope of preventing it or not?

Here is a list of five things people can do, and, more importantly, a list of five things governments can do, according to the intergovernmental panel on climate change and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

People can make a difference by eating a plant-based diet, avoiding air travel, living car-free, and having smaller families.

But while individual action is important, it won’t be sufficient. Therefore the fifth thing people can do is vote for governments that will do the following: expand the use of renewable energy, increase vehicle fuel efficiency, limit the amount of carbon polluters can emit, invest in efficient energy technologies and industries, and stop deforestation.

I know we have many urgent topics competing for our attention. And I know nobody likes to think about the looming, existential steamroller that is global warming. But global warming has as much claim on our energy and attention as any other urgent topic, if not more. So, spare a thought for global warming, or better yet, spare an action.