This weekend, The New York Times Magazine profiled Jim Rogers, who is one of the oddest environmentalists out there.   What makes him odd is that he is the CEO of Duke Energy, the third-largest corporate emitter of carbon dioxide in the United States.   He invites environmentalists to his office to brief him on green initiatives, and was one of the more vocal supporters of a federal cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions.   From the article:

For years, he has opened his doors to the kinds of green activists who would give palpitations to most energy C.E.O.’s… In April, James Hansen, a climatologist at NASA and one of the first scientists to publicly warn about global warming, wrote an open letter urging Rogers to stop burning coal - so Rogers took him out for a three-hour dinner in Manhattan…Last year, Rogers astonished his board when he presented his plan to “decarbonize” Duke Energy by 2050 - in effect, to retool the utility so that it emits very little carbon dioxide.

Rogers, as mentioned above, is for strict regulation of emissions through a cap-and-trade system.   If the market does its job right, Rogers thinks, there’s no reason technology won’t keep pace and drive emissions down.   However, in the current state of the Congressional bill, Rogers is against it, feeling the laws as written would be a financial disaster for Duke.   As well, he is being harangued by some shareholders about Duke building a new coal power plant.   These people, Rogers claims, can’t see the “big picture” when it comes to decreasing carbon emissions.

takepart here to read the whole article to learn what Rogers sees the future of energy production as, and takepart here to learn more about how a cap-and-trade system would work.