The other night I took my fourteen year old daughter to see Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth. I was a little concerned that a kid who has just finished the long school year, and whose taste in movies tends to run to slasher flicks, would find the film’s format less than engaging.

I was wrong. We were both engrossed from the very first frame. By the end we were angry (that world leaders have let things get to this point), disgusted (that our country is run by people who just don’t care about the future), pained (that we could have had Al Gore as our president — in fact we elected him, but that’s another story), and motivated (we have to do something!).

As we talked about the film afterward, I tried to temper my own fear for the not-too-distant future and instead to channel it into a discussion of positive action. In fact, I have begun talking with both of my daughters about the great challenge of their generation and the mission they must embrace, which is nothing less than saving the planet. We have delayed too long already.

I urge every reader to see this film, take your kids (teens and above), and talk to them about the world you and they want to live in.

By now even the penguins of Antarctica have heard the news: the number two richest man in the world, Warren Buffett, has decided to donate a large chunk of change to the number one richest man in the world, Bill Gates.

But trying to fathom the importance of this move is a bit like standing at the base of the Empire State Building and looking up to get a sense of its height: you need perspective.

Here is one way to get some perspective. The combined assets of Gates/Buffett, set at around $60 billion (give or take the GDP of a small country), are equivalent to the assets of the next eight biggest American foundations combined!

That’s right:Gates/Buffett = Ford + Robert Wood Johnson + Lilly + Kellogg + Hewlett + Packard + Mellon + MacArthur.

In the mid-term, by which I mean Bill Gates’ lifetime, I think this is a great move. He is a daring, risk-taking philanthropist who is not afraid to take on the biggest problems. I hope global warming and energy independence make the list at some point; we could use his thinking and dedication on these urgent problems as well as the ones he is currently working on (global health and U.S. education).

I have a bit more concern about the longer-term. What happens when Buffett, and Bill and Melinda Gates, are gone and their foundation is run by … ?

That’s the problem: run by whom? Their kids? Microsoft board members? Who knows?

By that time the foundation could have more than $100 billion in assets and be capable of so much good—or evil—depending upon who is at the helm.

I would hate to see $100 billion devoted to, say, spaying feral cats, or worse, advancing the rather thin political thinking of a failed and long-forgotten president named George W. Bush.

For now, however, it’s a great day for philanthropy, as well as a reminder that private philanthropy is only as good as the people behind it.