Image Source: Shutterstock

In a surprising move this week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer decided to stop spending money on campaign ads. The two billionaires miraculously came to the same conclusion that their money would be better spent on investments in energy breakthroughs. Both had invested millions in climate change solutions in years past, and had seen the massive impact their money could have. They realized this week that their campaign ad buys weren’t moving the needle as much as investments in energy research and deployment could.

After an article from FiveThirtyEight was posted on December 3rd highlighting the absurd amount of money both were spending, it is understandable how these two good-intentioned rich guys changed their minds about running for President. The data from Kantar/Campaign Media Analysis Group showed that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has spent more money on ads than all of the other candidates combined in just a couple weeks. And, Tom Steyer has also spent far more than the other candidates. The two billionaires have decided to invest the bulk of their fortunes in the Breakthrough Energy initiative started by Bill Gates.

The Breakthrough Energy Coalition was started four years ago in November of 2015 with an initial fund of $1 billion to fight climate change by investing in clean energy innovations. The idea is to make investments in clean energy companies that might have significant impact on cutting emissions. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer were two of the first investors alongside Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Reid Hoffman, Jack Ma, Meg Whitman, and Mark Zuckerberg. So, it should come as no surprise that Bloomberg and Steyer are doubling down on their climate investments.

This obviously hasn’t happened… yet. These two billionaires haven’t dropped out as of today, Saturday December 14th, 2019, and they haven’t committed any more of their fortunes to the Breakthrough Energy initiative. But, maybe the sentiment of this article will travel through this Medium to the ear holes of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer. The people around these two billionaires are probably telling them that they can be President if they just spend their fortunes on ads, but the truth is they won’t be elected, and their money will be wasted on ad buys instead of renewable energy and trees. UNLESS. Remember “UNLESS” from The Lorax? “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not.”

Every week Bloomberg and Steyer ads are running is tens of millions of dollars that could have otherwise been used for things like solar projects, energy research, green jobs programs, and the like. Let’s ask these lovely kindhearted billionaires to spend their campaign ad money on climate change solutions. For the country and for the planet, we need these two billionaires to drop out of the Presidential campaign and put their fortunes into energy breakthroughs and renewable energy projects.