Al Gore's global warming profit motive!
WASHINGTON - June 3, 2009 - For years, NewsBusters has asked the question: when will media report Nobel Laureate Al Gore's global warming profit motive?
On Monday, Reuters did.
In an article titled "Gore-backed Hara Sees Profit from Low-carbon Economy," author David Lawsky went where most climate change obsessed media members dare not.
An environmental start-up backed by Al Gore's venture capital firm aims to take advantage of coming U.S. climate change legislation by helping companies like Coca Cola and even cities cut pollution.
Hara, a 25-employee company that debuted in 2008, provides online software to help companies reduce their carbon footprint - a $2.5 billion market that will grow 10-fold if the proposed energy bill, which will require companies to get permits for emissions, becomes law, Chief Executive Officer Amit Chatterjee said.
At the heart of the legislation is a "cap-and-trade" system that will gradually reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by industry, by requiring them to have permits to spew their emissions.
"Then companies will be forced to act, as opposed to seeing the business benefit of acting," he said in an interview, "The debate alone of 'cap and trade' is a driver for our product."
After the set-up, Lawsky fingered Gore:
Positioning itself for the new market, Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins last year invested $6 million in Hara - which counts the city of Palo Alto as a client - with the endorsement of former U.S. Vice President Gore, who is a partner.
Yes, he is a partner, and as NewsBusters reported in November 2007, the fact that Gore claims to be contributing his salary from Kleiner Perkins to his non-profit Alliance for Climate Protection is irrelevant, for he not only gets these wages free and clear from taxes while being able to control them, he's also in position to REALLY benefit from the upside in equity values when any of the holdings of this firm go public.
That is, after all, how venture capitalists make money, for typically very little of their income is salary-based.
