If a corporation was considering a direction where they knew this would be the case ahead of time, there is no conflict or disagreement possible that this direction should not be taken, even if it would decrease shareholder value.
This is not true, you presuppose that people want to avoid the destruction of society or extinction of humans at some point in the future. Many - probably most - people would not want society to collapse or humans to go extinct during their lifetime, or that of their children or grandchildren, but the further those events are in the future, the more likely many are to prefer some gain now over some loss far in the future that does not affect them personally.
You have decided for you that those catastrophic future costs have to be avoided and that you are willing to incur some cost for that now, but that does not make it true for everyone. Your position is essentially that your utility function is more reasonable than that of people preferring to make some money now over decreasing the probability or severity of some future event and therefore everyone should adopt or be forced to adopt your utility function.
If a corporation was considering a direction where they knew this would be the case ahead of time, there is no conflict or disagreement possible that this direction should not be taken, even if it would decrease shareholder value.
This is not true, you presuppose that people want to avoid the destruction of society or extinction of humans at some point in the future. Many - probably most - people would not want society to collapse or humans to go extinct during their lifetime, or that of their children or grandchildren, but the further those events are in the future, the more likely many are to prefer some gain now over some loss far in the future that does not affect them personally.
You have decided for you that those catastrophic future costs have to be avoided and that you are willing to incur some cost for that now, but that does not make it true for everyone. Your position is essentially that your utility function is more reasonable than that of people preferring to make some money now over decreasing the probability or severity of some future event and therefore everyone should adopt or be forced to adopt your utility function.