CHARGES OF GREEN HYPOCRISY IN THE INVESTMENT COMMUNITY:

“We’ve made 14 investments in cleantech and greentech,” he said. “We’re extremely committed to that investment thesis.”

But others aren’t so sure.

Daniel Kammen, professor in the energy and resources group at the University of California at Berkeley, said such investments by Kleiner and other firms that portray themselves as green-friendly are inconsistent with their marketing message.

“They’re being hypocritical,” he said of the firms. The former vice president Al Gore, the billionaire Richard Branson and other figures with ties to Silicon Valley’s green movement “should hold these companies to a higher standard.”

I don’t see anything wrong with investing in both clean/green technologies and in fossil fuel development — we’re going to be needing fossil fuels for quite a while, even if somebody invents the “Mr. Fusion” tomorrow.

But this illustrates a problem with the environmental movement — when you push your ideas not as a pragmatic, technocratic approach, but instead sell it as a messianic moralistic quasi-religious one, then things like this do look hypocritical.