Virgin Master

Could the business community develop clean-fuel technology by itself, or is it necessary for governments to fund some of these efforts?
Governments can encourage people by the way they tax, and they can certainly help to push the world toward a cleaner world. The American government has done very, very little about this, and hopefully whoever takes over [next] year will put it high on their list of priorities.

You recently hosted a meeting about this on your island with leaders in business, science and politics. What came of that?
Let's assume that the majority of scientists are correct and that the threat of global warming is worse than World War I and World War II put together. Carbon is the global enemy, and there needs to be a global-environmental war room to make sure all the best ideas are looked at and researched. Where is the center to collate all the great ideas that are around the world on how to protect rain forests? Where is the center to look at what we're going to do with rising sea levels? Can we create massive inland lakes where we can maybe funnel some of the water when the sea levels rise rather than just flood all the coastal cities, all the major cities of our world? And so on. So what came out of it was that we are in the process of setting up this war room. We've put in an initial $3 million, and Google has indicated that they are keen to support it, along with a number of others.

Will this be a physical war room somewhere, or is it a virtual war room?
It will be physical and virtual, so … well, you can't really have both, but it'll be physical.

Where will it be?
It's not settled yet, but it's likely to be London.

If the crisis is so severe, shouldn't people just stop flying?
It's certainly an argument. About 2.5 percent of all carbon is from airlines around the world, and they obviously contribute to the problem. My own belief is that the best way of tackling this problem is by technology, not by turning progress back to the Dark Ages. Hopefully those billions that we hope to make from the airlines will contribute toward coming up with a solution.

How do you respond to charges that wealthy people who are interested in resolving these problems are hypocritical because they lead lavish lifestyles?
I live on an island, and within a few months it will be 100 percent carbon-neutral. It'll be powered by wind, it'll be powered by solar, there will be batteries to store the solar and the wind when there's no sun and there's no wind, and the wood that we're using to develop the island next door will all be properly specified to make sure that none of it is coming from rain forests. So I do think that wealthy people do need to lead by example.

What was your relationship with Johnny Rotten like?
It was good: the Sex Pistols' bark was much worse than the bite. They were young lads having a lot of fun, and I was a young lad, too. It was one of the best years of my life.

© 2008