The World as we know it

Every once in a while I get to thinking about the world and how badly we are treating it. I suppose I come across a thought provoking article on the web or I hear a story actually...
I fear the worst....I wonder if I should be trying harder to help out. Perhaps pursue a career in Environmental Engineering, or Space Exploration...something to either help fix what we have or to explore new options.
I then get to thinking why do we bother? If the world is in such a bad state why try to make a difference? Will my child grow up and live a long life or will we enter into an ice-age, volcanic or some other natural disaster era in which life as we know will no longer be...
Its depressing honeslty. I know I should be thinking what can I do? How can I make changes to help the world? How can I break out of my everyday mold and make a difference?
I don't know...I think I get caught up in the emotions of OMG and can't think straight. Does that make sense? I'd like to think that my life had meaning but in the grand scheme of things does it? Will my son have a world to grow up in? Will my grandchildren? and so on...will life continue?
There have been plenty of stories and adaptations of how life turns out and how we overcome(The Jetsons, StarTrek, heck even The Terminator)...I'd like to think we will fix, grow, and make better what we have and be able to go on....but I can't see how. Our environment is struggling (has it struggled before and we just never knew it?), our world politics are in dis-array. Where does the US stand? What could happen tomorrow? Will the Polar caps melt and flood the world? Will we go to Nuclear War and destroy more then half of what we hold dear before we realize whats going on? Could there be an illness spread by bugs/animals/food/water...thousands will die before a cure is found?
Then I think...am I really helping the world go on by sitting at a desk 25 hours a week and then raising a family? Is there more I can do? Granted, I work for a pretty cool place who is making break-throughs in both space exploration and medicine everyday! Maybe I should feel proud to do my small part and leave the big questions to someone who can do something about it
...maybe