Photo:Johnny Vulkan, Creative Commons, Flickr
I recommend watching John Doerr's emotional talk on green technology and investing at the 2007 TED Conference.  I hope he is inspirational to businesses looking to find the solutions to climate change.  I also hope he is inspirational to government to get out of the way and dial back subsidies to carbon-creating businesses and activities.  I think his idea of buying carbon credits is silly, that process can be too fraught with fraud and frivolous subsidies.  But his idea that business and private enterprise will create the technologies to slow climate change is right – that's part of why we created The Panelist.

So you have that big idea on how to save the world and make a ton of money?  Check out John Doerr's timeless startup checklist at FastCompany.

Disclosure:  I do not know John Doerr. I am invested in Venture Capital funds but not in John Doerr's firm Kleiner Perkins.  I also oversee an investment at a Clean Technology venture capital firm as a boardmember of the New World Foundation.  This fund is not part of Kleiner Perkins either.

If you are a small investor without some kind of special connection to a successful venture capital firm, you probably should not invest in any venture capital.  The fees usually wipe out any advantage venture capital investing might have over the stock market.  And since you are small, the fees will be so high as to more than wipe out your advantage.  Stick with stocks.

Photo by Pierre via Flickr and Creative Commons.