Branson To Bush: Eat My Exhaust!
President Bush's team proudly announces $3 billion a year in technology subsidies to fight global warming. At least he's beginning to act faintly like a believer that global warming is real … forcing even farther into political Siberia Neanderthals like Senator Inhofe.
The Bush Administration's timing was most likely intended to steal the thunder from the Clinton Foundation shindig and the newly dynamic climate crusader Al Gore, who has masterfully laid out the full response that is needed to combat the threat.
Little were they expecting to be upstaged by Virgin's Richard Branson, who pledged all the profits from his transportation businesses to the fight against global warming … a gift valued at $3 billion over the next ten years.
Branson reminds me a lot of my hero Ted Turner. Both are masters of “doing good and doing well” — a skill and motivation I strongly admire.
Turner, an old boss of mine, would do little things like offer free unedited time on CNN (in its “chicken noodle network” days), as well as free satellite uplink stations, to each and every world leader to say whatever they wanted to say to a world audience. Why? Because he truly believed a better world would come from people around the planet all hearing from each other directly; but also because political regulators in most of these countries made the decision as to which, if any, “foreign” broadcasters like CNN would be permitted to operate within their countries.
Branson, who makes about half his fortune from polluting airlines and railroads, gets to say: “Fly Virgin Air guilt free, your fare is helping fight global warming.” Airlines and railroads aren't going away soon, so I say: “Meantime, take the money.”
Behavioral Science Q & A
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