I love that analogy. No, you’re not going to personally save the world by reducing your carbon footprint. But you know what you are going to be? One leaf on a tree in a forest, making that little bit more oxygen that helps collectively make the world a better place.
And that’s worth doing. Especially if you can encourage other people to be leaves too.
It might’ve been invented by Big Oil, but if you keep giving money to Big Oil to buy fossil fuel you’re at least partially responsible for the carbon emissions released by burning that fuel.