Touching the Federal Reserve Nerve

In a rather desperate attempt to appear relevant, the Federal Reserve just published a report on the threats climate change presents to the economy. It provides insight into a mindset thoroughly colonized by capitalist ideology. One can only imagine the amount of time and money a group of elite experts put into their research in order to come up with this statement:

"The growing number of studies and emerging innovations in climate resilience and adaptation financing"- ok, stop right there, nine years to avoid runaway, self reinforcing feedback loops, 402 ppm atmospheric co2 concentration, emissions steadily increasing and they are now getting around to studying adaptation "financing"? - "is setting the stage for developing a comprehensive system"- stop again and consider; at this moment of crisis they are "studying financing" which will someday "set the stage" for later "developing a system"; in other words they have barely started thinking about it- "a set of standardized products, services, practices and tools- that is able to overcome key barriers and to take advantage of opportunities posed by climate change."

So. As soon as they study financing mechanisms some capitalist will come up with "standardized" bullshit to overcome the threat climate chaos poses to profit accumulation. This catastrophe is an "opportunity" if you only look at it through a pathological lens.

Melting arctic and sea level rise? No worries: "At some point in the next 20 to 30 years" says one of the reports expert authors (CEO of Realty Capital Corp.), "there may be a threat to the availability of the 30 year mortgage in various vulnerable and highly exposed areas." This is how insanely out of touch elites are. To ward off any socialist Green New Deal tendencies one editor, a Harvard faculty member stresses: "the private sector must assume a greater role in preparing for the effects of climate change. The private sector has always adapted. One either adapts to new markets, products or services, or they go out of business."

But what happens when the ecosystem "goes out of business"? There is simply no way for these kinds of people to understand the implications or as David Byrne wrote: "As things fell apart nobody paid much attention."