Climate hysterics want to avoid responsibility for the economic damage that their carbon-neutral policies are going to have on society. They want accountability from others, but not themselves. How many have done the calculations to work out the second and third order effects of their zero fossil fuel agenda?
Many of the most ardent callers for climate action are themselves not even climate scientists, but merely offload their thought processing to the intellectuals who are. Almost without fail, neither them, nor the intellectual are educated in economics.
The reality is that nobody can work out the second and effects and so on for these drastic changes, because they have incomplete information. The intellectuals and 'thought leaders' themselves have a fraction of a percent of the actual tacit knowledge that drives economic activity. The knowledge is very widely distributed, which is why central planning is less efficient than the market almost all of the time.
The tension isn't caused by the "status quo" fighting back. It is caused by hysterics calling for action on things they know nothing about. How many extinction rebellion fanatics have read The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels? It's not like they would if they were recommended it - the mere name will put them off because they have a preconceived notion and will ardently resist any information which is likely to cause cognitive dissonance in themselves.
Which tells you everything you need to know.
It isn't intellectualism driving them - it is misplaced fear due to grossly exaggerated climate scare claims, drummed up by the status-quo.
Almost always, it is the same crowds who babble on about equality and wealth distribution too. Many of them from wealthy or middle-classes, who have resources to help the people they claim to want to help, but rarely, if ever, engage in altruistic acts of voluntary work or charity because they'd rather spend the time talking about it. They won't put their own money or action where their mouths are, but demand it of others - many of whom are not in such fortunate positions.