Profits of Doom

Soaring temperatures, water droughts, war in the Middle East and a mad scramble for dwindling energy supplies… Despite facing climate chaos, politicians - and the corporations they serve - continue as if nothing is happening to our ecosystem. Instead, the multinationals are rampantly exploiting away so that consumers can enjoy breakthroughs like cheaper plasma TV sets. And now climatologists are predicting that global temperatures will rise quicker than previously expected, as tipping points are reached and irreversible changes to our climate are just round the corner.

Faced with this, are the most powerful institutions on our planet slamming on the economic brakes before we get to the cliff edge? Er no, they’re plotting ‘profit driven’ solutions to the oncoming tumble into the abyss. OK, those bunny-huggin’ eco-nuts might have had some valid points about the whole global warming thing, but don’t think of Climate Chaos as a problem, look on it as a window to new markets! Judging by the tsunami of greenwash at the moment, rather than causing a major problem for big business, it looks there’s real cash to be made with global warming and investors are being told to look greenwards to make some serious loot. General Electric, the world’s 11th biggest corporation with £9billion worth of annual profits, have just launched ‘Ecomagination’, a subsidiary company which seeks to make as much cash as possible from all things solar-powered and run by the wind. Looking according to one former US government official, “to make money in a carbon constrained world”. Last autumn investment heavyweights, Goldmann Sachs, published its ‘Environmental Policy Framework’, which aims to “find effective market-based solutions to address climate change, ecosystem degradation and other critical environmental issues.”

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