Billionaire businessman Richard Branson is committing an estimated $3 billion over the next ten years -- funded by profits from his booming transportation businesses (trains, Virgin aviation, etc.) -- to fight global warming.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Richard Branson
"Our generation has inherited an incredibly beautiful world from our parents and they from their parents."
"We must not be the generation responsible for irreversibly damaging the environment. We must hand it over to our children in as near pristine a condition as we were lent it from our parents."
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Full Story (CNN): http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science....ap/index.html
I just love this because it really does take people who are successful in business, particularly in oil and petrochemical-dependent businesses such as those in the transportation sector, to step up and invest some of their windfalls into cleaner, renewable fuels and more efficient modes of transportation. With folks like Branson stepping up, it's harder for Joe Blow Petrochemical Exec to stand around with his hands in his pockets saying, "I don't know what people want us to do... go back to the Stone Age or horse-drawn carriages?" No, we just want people to exercise some foresight and do what humans have always done best -- find solutions to problems, namely depleting non-renewable resources and increasing pollution.
Kudos to Branson. Like other philanthropic businessmen (Bill & Melinda Gates, etc.) it's good to see some of their wealth going to, in effect, increase the health of the world -- Bill & Melinda Gates do so through poverty and health related efforts, Branson is doing so through efforts to curb global warming.