Recommended reading

Fortune magazine veteran Brian Dumaine has just published a highly readable new book. It will be of interest to anyone in need of having their spirits lifted from the assumptions that we will be hostages forever to third world oil despots, or that global warming must inevitably lead to Pittsburgh being the next great beach town.

“The Plot to Save the Planet: How Visionary Entrepreneurs and Corporate Titans Are Creating Real Solutions to Global Warming” identifies technological advances that are likely to play a significant role in lessening our middle east oil Jones, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What makes this an exciting read is that these are not theoretical laboratory experiments, these are tested technologies that are already working their way into daily economic life, or at minimum are in the prototype stage. My favorite is the algae that eats carbon and poops biodiesel.

Dumaine is a guy who looks more at home in wingtips than Birkenstocks – another reason to feel some optimism after reading the book. He has done his own research and filtered all these ideas through the screen of how much venture capital each idea is attracting. The VCs get plenty of things wrong, but it is not usually because they have failed to thoroughly consider the economic viability of an idea, and these all pass the test.

Read it. You’ll sleep better.

(Full disclosure: I’ve known Brian for 20 years.)

Movie: In case you are feeling like you have a hard life, 12th century Mongolians had it harder. Don’t trust me, go see “Mongol,” a movie about the early life of Genghis Khan. It’s amazing the man born as Tumudgin lived to adulthood, let alone conquered the world. This is a beautiful, engrossing movie that was nominated for a “Best Foreign Language Film” Academy Award. (More disclosure: It’s in Mongolian with subtitles. Also, it was a violent era.)