
Well, perhaps we might get the kind of investment we need in clean energy after all. Business Week reports on how green is Wall Street's new darling:
You know a cultural movement is real when the money men get on board. In just the past year a broad swath of financiers -- venture capitalists, hedge funds, investment banks, public pension funds, and even stodgy insurers -- have begun sinking billions of dollars into producers of ethanol, fuel cell superbatteries, microscopic bugs that turn glucose into plastic, environmentally friendly pesticides, anything that might tap into the green craze. Saving the planet, protecting America, doing God's work, cynically exploiting a feel-good trend -- call it what you will. Wall Street sees money to be made.
I knew the world had changed a little when, a few months ago, I saw Warren Buffett (the famously savvy investor and megabillionaire) on some interview show -- maybe it was Charlie Rose, maybe it was Nightly Business Report -- and he was talking about the ramifications of global change for his big investments in insurance. He believed that climate change was making intense hurricanes more common, and was changing his view on the "reinsurance" industry to match. If there's anyone that has credibility with the commercial titans and wannabees of the USA, it's him. Now if we could just get him to come out against American Idol...