ECO-MONEY – BIG VS. BIGGER

Book Review – 'Eco Barons: The Dreamers, Schemers and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet' by Edward Humes; In his book, Humes looks at the wealthy green elite.
Dan Neil, April 5, 2009 (LA Times)

"Eco Barons, The Dreamers, Schemers and Millionaires Who are Saving Our Planet…Edward Humes…Ecco: 368 pp., $25.99…Excepting the facts that the title is absurd and the premise conceptually fractured, this is a fine little book: a collection of starry-eyed portraits of environmentalists who have devoted their lives and/or fortunes to saving the Earth. And yet by invoking the industrial barons of the 19th century -- the dangerous men who amassed inconceivable wealth in railroads, real estate, steel -- Humes' title creates the expectation that his subjects will be farsighted ecopreneurs, who are profiting in solar and wind energy, biomass technology and sustainable farming. The wind and solar barons are out there, and they are making a bundle. In ignoring them, Humes fumbles the promise of his own trope.

"Humes devotes most of this book to conservationists such as Doug Tompkins, the fashion mogul who founded Esprit and then took his fortune to South America to buy up vast swaths of Patagonia, forming Pumalin Park; Ted Turner, the media empire-builder who is now the nation's largest private landowner; and Roxanne Quimby, the hippie-chick workhorse behind Burt's Bees products who, after cashing out in the 1990s with nearly $400 million, devoted her fortune to saving the Maine North Woods. God bless them all…"

click to enlarge

"…To suggest that a handful of chlorophyll-loving millionaires' fencing off paradise somehow spells deliverance for our suffering Earth is not only implausible but actually risible. Such a notion embraces, to an astonishing degree, a messianic faith in the world's financial elite that -- perhaps you've noticed lately -- is indifferent to the general welfare. …If we take no other lesson from the Wall Street apocalypse -- from the spectacle of inept, paper-pushing functionaries walking off from their ruined companies with tens of millions of dollars -- we should at least recognize our collective failure to stigmatize extreme wealth…

Look, I get it. Tompkins, Turner and Quimby are using their fortunes to buy up as much of the remaining Eden as possible…I share their sense of urgency and salute their determination. Indeed, everyone profiled in this book deserves a crown of organic laurel, or a lifetime supply of arugula, whatever…I only object insofar as anything in this book gives readers the slightest reassurance that the financial ruling elite will save us. These few class traitors notwithstanding, rich people are the problem, not the solution."