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Strategic Consumption: How to Change the World with What You Buy
BUY A BETTER FUTURE. That was the motto plastered everywhere at last weekend's EP!C sustainability expo in Vancouver. I was there to give a talk, and the talk went well, and we met a bunch of great people and saw some clever green products, but the whole time that phrase kept rattling around in my head, "Buy a better future." It stuck in my craw, and here's why: You can't. You cannot buy a better future, at least not the sort of bright green future we talk about here at Worldchanging. That sort of future -- a sustainable one, a future that itself has a future -- is not available for purchase: It doesn't yet exist. You can't find it on shelves, and you can't even order it up custom, no matter how much money you're willing to spend. You can be heroic in your efforts, but at the moment it's essentially impossible to live a North American consumer lifestyle and do no harm.
Billionaire Black's Latest Game
In 2005, a private jet carrying financier Leon Black and his top partners began filling with smoke. As the pilot descended for an emergency landing, a thunderstorm sent the aircraft careening before it could land safely in North Dakota's Badlands. Unfazed, Mr. Black and his partners spent the night in an airport hangar hammering out details of a $10 billion fund that would be raised in the coming months to acquire companies. The drama foreshadowed wrangling now going on between Mr. Black's private-equity firm, Apollo Management LP and investment bankers, as he explores selling a chunk of the roughly $15 ... .
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