The problem with that is that, in the meantime, the rich and powerful (which includes us, odd though that may seem, in a junior capacity anyway) are likely to have destroyed our world, or at least done enormous damage and caused appalling suffering, mostly to people who aren't on any reckoning part of the rich and powerful.

Mostly, but not exclusively, fortunately. I think that our best hope is that the people with a stranglehold in our society and our economy will realise that there is more profit and less loss in making changes that avoid killing the golden goose. They are already having to start talking that way, eg oil companies running adverts making out how much they care about the economy, and how committed they are to developming non-polluting akternatives.

At this stage that's mostly bunkum, but even in economic terms stupidity isn't going to pay off long term. It may be true that business thinks short term, but people have to live relatively longterm. All the evidence is that the ecological shit is going to hit the fan well within the lifetimes of the people making the decisions and their children.