Will Today’s Billionaires Let Humankind Destroy the Earth?

I have a chapter in my current book project (“Bullish on Renewable Energy – Eleven Reasons Why Clean Energy Investors Can’t Lose”) tentatively called “Extremely Wealthy Forces of Super-Innovation Will Not Let 20th Century Energy Policy Slowly Destroy the Planet.”

We’d all like to think that certain multibillionaires, perhaps Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Sergei Brin/Larry Page, etc. care more than Donald Trump or the Koch Brothers about the quality of the planet that we will be leaving to posterity.Bill Gates, for example, is an extremely intelligent and dedicated philanthropist. Yes, he’s all about ending malaria, but can we possibly suppose that he’ll be so absorbed in this task that he’ll fail to play a key role in the world energy scene while the oceans rise around us? In fact, he is already involved in TerraPower, a start-up in advanced nuclear.

I certainly hope that we’re right about the morals of the younger super-rich. But in truth, it doesn’t matter, as, again, even without them, the forces of pure market economics are pushing us hard and fast in the direction of clean energy.