Only capitalism can save the planet

As the founder of two non-profit research organizations, the Worldwatch Institute and the Earth Policy Institute, and the recipient of a MacArthur genius grant for his work on sustainable development, Brown is an unlikely champion of capitalism. But he predicts a half-century’s worth of change is possible in the next decade as corporate America and billionaire investors move into profit-making new-energy ventures.

He cites Wal-Mart’s decision last year to move toward solar energy—not to save the planet, but to save money. “It’s a business decision,” Wal-Mart CEO Bill Simon said in May 2014. “The renewable energy we buy meets or beats prices from the grid.”

The beauty of this quiet revolution is that it’s more than the usual suspects. Billionaires Michael Bloomberg and Warren Buffett are on the frontlines, investing in new sources of energy, but so is conservative oilman Philip Anschutz, owner of the conservative outlets The Weekly Standard and The Washington Examiner, who a year ago invested $15 billion to build a 3,000 megawatt wind farm in Wyoming.  “Anschutz has jumped into this with all four feet, he’s pulling out all the stops,” says Brown. “He sees Wyoming as a huge gold mine, and he’s building a transmission line to California. Wyoming has 600,000 people; California has 28 million.” Do the math, he says.