Investing comes with risk. This article is a general discussion of the merits and risks associated with these ETFs, not a specific recommendation. Speak to an investment professional and make sure your portfolio is diversified. Tim Nash owns shares of PZD and a SolarShare bond. Tim does not own shares of the other ETFs mentioned in this article.

This portfolio is simple, with a positive environmental impact.  It is very diversified, yet places a strong bet on the emergence of a low-carbon economy.  The total annual cost of this portfolio is 0.45%.

I’m getting ready for my first class of Introduction to Economics, and coming up with creative ways to teach the fundamental concept of ‘opportunity cost’.  For those of you needing an Econ101 refresher, opportunity cost is defined as 'the cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action'.  For example, right now I’m spending an hour writing this blog.  If I wasn’t writing this blog, I’d be building a financial plan or doing some research for a client.  Since my fee amounts to $150 per hour, the opportunity cost for me to write this blog is $150.

This week, I attended the Toronto Sustainability Speaker’s Series event on Capitalism 2.0. In a room with 80 of Toronto’s sustainability leaders, we discussed how a new economy is emerging. A colleague challenged us to define what the heck Capitalism 2.0 looks like, so here is my attempt.

The world is in trouble, I hope we can all agree on this point. We’re facing an economic crisis (first-world problems), a social crisis (third-world problems), and an ecological crisis (everybody’s problem). I’m always on the hunt for policies that address multiple inefficiencies, and that will get us moving towards a more sustainable economy. One such policy being discussed these days is called the Robin Hood Tax. This tax addresses two critical crises in the world right now: poor support from governments for global development projects and rampant currency speculation by the financial industry.

We’ve known it for years: climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing the future of our economy, society, and planet.

But for some reason, Americans in large part were in denial.  Perhaps it was the overt skepticism promoted by the Heartland Institute.  Maybe it was rebellion against Al Gore and his holier-than-thou whilst guilt-ridden messaging.  Ah forget it, let’s just blame the Koch Brothers and be done with it.