Free Market Activists

Great Op-Ed piece in the NY Times by Thomas Friedman this morning. If you have access to TimesSelect, take the time to read it. He hits on th environmental movement, the web as a democratizer, and capitalism. The opening lines:

There aren’t a lot of environmental groups with their own investment bank consultants, so when you hear that Environmental Defense has just hired the boutique Wall Street firm Perella Weinberg Partners, you know that we’re in a new world. Every college activist should study this story, because it is the future.

I’ve always believed in the power of free markets. And I’ve always believed we had to do more to protect our environment. While in college, I spent six months in Costa Rica studying (and surfing – here’s a pic found on Flickr of my favorite spot) how the government was using capitalism to protect their rain forests. They had hit on a combination of eco-tourism and leveraging the bio-diversity of their plant life for pharmaceutical development. Capitalism for good!!!

When I got back to the States, some of my enthusiasm waned. I began to feel that the environmental movement in the US was more preachy than pragmatic. I abandoned plans to study environmental law and became an investment banker (sellout). Years later, it’s nice to see that environmentalists are embracing the power of Adam Smith’s invisible hand to bring about positive change.