Why our plutocrats aren't bothered by climate change

Of course! the reason for lack of real motivation and action on the part of our governments is that those in government are pretty much networked into the class of those who are making money by the current financial system.

Now, they might still be interested in stopping the worst and costly effects of the changes that climate change would bring about were it not for the fact that the way things are set up, there is a greater incentive to make money out of selling new stuff to those affected. You see, if you own the means of production, then producing more is more profitable. New homes, new crops, new clothing choices, and all changing rapidly as we work through the succession of effects. All of that means opportunities for selling stuff especially for those with the capital to invest in the new products. It's the same problem at base as with the way we count GDP: it shows up as 'better' for the economy measured by GDP to clean up pollution, for example, than to prevent it; cleaning it up produces measurable economic activity where as stopping it doesn't. And where do the profits from that measurable economic activity go?

In most cases these are people working with organisations, businesses, which do things like scenario planning. The scenarios will certainly include the cases of greater amounts of climate change (above two degrees C). These will then have sophisticated SWOT style planning applied to them. So I conclude that this planning has shown them that there are, from the point of view of profit, greater opportunities than threats in the scenarios which bear down on the poorer members of our global society. As a Friends of the Earth spokesperson said:

“Compensating coastal communities affected by climate change is simply a matter of social justice, ... At the moment, the government is dumping these costs on individual households and vulnerable communities.”Almost 7,000 UK properties to be sacrificed to rising seas | Environment | The Guardian:

This is just the pattern that we are already seeing: the cuts are being made at the expense of the poorer and more vulnerable and letting off the richer (and financially more resilient) from doing their fair share: we are not all in it together. Trickle down economics doesn't work but we are left with the attitude that once was justified by it: that enriching the 'entrepreneurs' is a Good Thing. Of course most of the entrepreneurs turn out to be rentiers not particularly adding any value to the economy as a whole and removing money from the economy by salting it away offshore.

The point we need to grasp is that if you are wealthy enough, you will feel that you can spend enough money to make sure you are shielded from the worst effects: it's easy to move home, easy to buy the stuff you need to deal with the effects, even relatively easy to employ private armies security to keep you safe from the civil strife. They can survive in a new medieval economy by becoming barons.