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I've always admired Virgin CEO Richard Branson. Anyone who can take a small record shop and turn it into a multi-billion dollar international super-corporation really is my kind of guy. Which makes this story all the more interesting:

Branson Pledges Billions to Fight Global Warming

Sir Richard Branson, the British magnate and adventurer, said today that all profits from his five airlines and train company, projected to be $3 billion through the next 10 years, would be invested in developing energy sources that do not contribute to global warming.

He announced the plan on the second day of the Clinton Global Initiative, a three-day meeting in Manhattan that amounts to a competitive festival of philanthropy run by former President Bill Clinton.

The money, he said, would be invested in a host of enterprises, including existing businesses within his Virgin Group of 200 companies, that are seeking ways to save energy or produce fuels, including aviation fuel, not derived from coal and oil[...]

“Our generation has inherited an incredibly beautiful world from our parents and they from their parents,” Mr. Branson said. “It is in our hands whether our children and their children inherit the same world. We must not be the generation responsible for irreversibly damaging the environment.”

Mr. Branson said the idea had grown out of a visit to his London home a few months ago by former Vice President Al Gore, who is on a prolonged worldwide speaking tour to promote “An Inconvenient Truth,” his documentary and book about global warming.

“You are in a position maybe to make a difference,” Mr. Branson said Mr. Gore had told him. “If you can make a giant step forward other people will follow.

I don't know why it isn't obvious to everyone at this point, but the first countries and corporations to make significant breakthroughs in non-carbon based energy technologies will see incredible economic gains over the next half century. Both from an economic and national security perspective, this one is a no-brainer. And yet, we do nothing.

The lesson of the first decade off the 21st century? Leadership matters.