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2 weeks ago

I asked a billionaire about his environmental philanthropy. It didn’t go well.

Earlier this year, a billionaire investor and philanthropist named Tom Kaplan auctioned off a small Rembrandt drawing of a lion at Sotheby’s in New York City. It sold for nearly $18 million. A press release prior to the auction noted that Kaplan would donate the proceeds of the sale to an environmental organization that he co-founded, called Panthera, which conserves wild cats like lions and jaguars. At face value, Kaplan’s gift is extraordinarily generous. Kaplan, owner of the world’s largest private collection of Rembrandts, is redeploying wealth that could have stayed locked up i...