Why don't millionaires help the environment more?

Question

i was watching "fabulous life of.." on vh1 and it was showing how a lot of famous people are putting big dollars into hybrid cars, and solar panel for their homes to help the environment. and people like angelina jolie go to other counties to help out. well with our energy crisis in the world and here in the us, i wonder why celebs don't buy wind turbines. iv heard people can purchase their own wind turbines to produce their own electricity and sometimes the electric company's end up having to owe them money. if celebs/billionaires helped out the country by supplying some of these energy efficient wind turbines they could actually make money off of it and help with the energy crisis. sounds like a good idea huh..?

Answer 1

Why don't you help it? You could turn lights off when you are not in the room, or re-use shopping bags or cut down shower time. Yet you can't be bothered. Millionaires are just like you.

Answer 2

1. Your specific proposals do not make sense (personal wind turbines, etc.). For one thing, neither solar cells nor wind turbines make money. The only reason individuals put up solar panels is that the government subsidizes them. Individual wind turbines are even less economical.

http://www.terrapass.com/blog/posts/goog...

2. Why would any of these people feel that it was in their interest to "help the country"? Most rich people got that way by being greedy; expecting them to behave for the greater good is not reasonable.

More to the point, any waste damages the environment. Being a celeb, living the high life, having a large home, all the perqs of being rich are damaging to the environment, yet they are what motivate people to become celebs, rich, etc. Being able to damage the environment is what they've worked for all their lives.

3. Even if they were interested in taking action for the greater good, which a few are, efforts to improve education (such as the Gates Foundation), transparency in politics (Soros), giving grants to the truly original minds in the world to allow them freedom to innovate (the MacArthur Foundation), etc. make much more sense to me than getting involved in alternative energy.

4. And those who really understand the environmental crises are not going to talk about what they are doing. After all, it is fairly clear that sustainability requires a significantly lower population - the Earth simply can't support the current numbers, which are still growing.

http://mmcconeghy.com/students/supcarryi...

Perhaps some of the rich really are planning to help the environment by killing many of us off (in a painless and humane way, of course), but if they are, they probably won't be publicizing their efforts.