Over the past 16 years, I have been involved in 5 successful startup companies ranging from an energy company, to several .com companies. Now I am focusing all of my attention on creating the tipping point in the sustainability movement by pushing initiatives in government, business and the broader social landscape. 
Many people are curious, what I am doing since I left Powerset. Well, the short story is that I have decided to dedicate myself to what I call the new Green Economy and I am working on several initiatives with other leaders in government and businesses that all fall under the responsibility of non-profit that I am founding called SF Green. 
“If you think Green is about saving the Earth, you’d be wrong: it’s about saving the human race.” That statement was made to me by Miriam Karell, a sustainability expert...(cont) during a multi-hour wide ranging discussion at a hipster coffee bar in the Mission district of San Francisco called Atlas Café. While nobody in the room jumped out of their seat when she said it, they should have.
Why? Because this, better than any other statement I’ve heard best characterizes where the Green movement has been, where it is now and why it will change the world.
The reality within her statement has spurred many countries around the world to jump into action. But with a new Green economy at hand, a shift in world power possible and the human race at stake, our government has not just been behind the 8-ball, it hasn’t been in the game at all. Has America lost its mojo? or are we about to see the return to the America we once knew?
What's the Big Problem?
Well its pretty simple. We, that is humans, have this nagging tendency to multiply, to be unsatisfied with not evolving and to want things that require lots of resources to make and to use. In the past 10,000 years or so, we have gotten along just fine by meeting our insatiable need for these things by creating infrastructures (like governments, industries, economies, social systems and so on) that ignore the issues of sustainability. Why? Because no one ever thought we would need to consider sustainability. Now we are in a pickle, because in order to sustain our existence (and keep consuming like the insatiable nuts we are) we need to change all of our thinking, all of our infrastructures. Are we just screwed?
Why Capitalism may save our butts.
Fortunately, over the past 200 years or so, Capitalism has spread throughout the world and dominates nearly every economy. Why is this fortunate? Well, because Capitalism, which works on a system of supply and demand, may just be the one thing that saves us all. Consumers, i.e. the human race, has realized we can’t go on the way we have all these years and now humans want new products that enable them NOT to become extinct – fancy that? And, as we know in Capitalism, with demand comes supply - and therein is the reason why Green will change the world.
The demand, by Consumers (who wish not to become extinct) for Green products, will cause businesses (who some say really run the world) to make changes in order to make money – and the world goes ‘round.
In other words, those Green things (like renewable energy, sustainable potable water, environmentally friendly products that are based and valued on the entire supply chain) can’t be made unless many of the old and unsustainable systemic infrastructures (like governments, industries, banking, energy) are overhauled. Once sustainability is a feature that consumers want in their products, businesses will give it to them.
Of coarse money solves everything, what could go wrong?
Well, as much as we would all like the principles of capitalism to simply and nealty solve everything (sorry Mark J.) they don't. For instance, many people claim that carbon trading (a capitalistic idea) is the great solution to global warming and that if we simply let the free market set a price to save the human race then we will win. However, others claim that this type of "free market" solution simply makes the problem worse because it allows companies to delay dealing with the real problems. Where the rubber hits the road on this issue is the realization that CAP and Trade has the word CAP in it. And CAP means a CAP put on emissions by a government - hopefully a qualified one. And there is where you need more than capitalism to solve the Green challenge. It will be the combination of the predictive and powerfull forces of the kinda "free" market that are controlled and buided by good social policy. We need capitalism for efficiency and good government for ethics - and we should never try to mix the two or we could end of with an immoral and ineffecient system.
What's going to happen when we get a new president?
In response to the demand for Green products it seems that a lot of countries have come alive with Green fever – eager to build the infrastructures that will attract the corporations. Its becoming clearer every day that Green is not just a whole new Green economy for corporations, its an opportunity for nimble countries who can overhaul their infrastructures to gain power on the world economic and political stage.
So who are these countries? Well it may be a different group of players than you think. I would look for 1st world countries like Japan who has lots of money, but no oil resources to invest heavily in Green. The last thing Japan would want is to be caught in a bidding war between the US and China or India for oil once peak oil hits. Further, I would look for countries like the UAE, whose countries economies are based on oil and who know they need to create a new economy to sustain their own livelyhood to invest heavily in Green. For these countries it is do or die and the evidence so far shows they get it - look at Abhu Dabi investing $15 billion in their Green city and look at Japan announcing a Green Fund 4 times the size of the United States.
So what are we, the US, doing? Right now we are doing not much at all with only a $2 billion fund for environmental issues. However, it looks like no matter which of th 3 leading candidates gets elected, there will likely be a seachange in our energy and environmental policy - starting with McCain who said he would approve a CAP and Trade system to Obama, who said he would proposae a $150 billion dollar environmental plan.
What I think will happen in the short term, right after the president gets elected, is that there will be a frenzy of people who want access to the capital from the government. Many of these actitivies will likely not actually be in the best interest of humanity, but rather in the best interest of a couple of humans' wallets. However, this will be weeded out over time and by the end of the next presidency I think the US will hit its stride. If that happens and we keep the same president, I think we should look for real change to occur in the second term. If we get a new president, then all bets are off.
Let me know what you think. Do you think that a sleeping giant will awake? or do you think we will hit the snooze button.