FLYNN VENCAT: You recently pledged $3 billion to fight global warming. But at the same time, your airline business is expanding. Do you really think we can save the planet while increasingly becoming jet-setters? BRANSON: I don’t think we can save the planet on our own. We need the leaders of the world to treat this as seriously as World War II looming. For our part, we’re doing a lot of things. We invest all of the profits from all of our airlines into coming up with an alternative, clean fuel. And I think the chances of us coming up with [one] in the next five years are pretty good. There is enough sugar in this world to replace all of Europe and America’s conventional fuel with sugar-based ethanol. We’re even working with General Electric and Boeing to develop a clean fuel that we think will be capable of flying 747s sometime next year.

Many scientists criticize ethanol because producing it requires fossil fuels. It’s absolute bollocks for people to say that. Even corn-based ethanol, which is about six times less efficient than sugar-based, still saves 50 percent CO2 compared to conventional dirty fuels. Cellulosic butanol—which uses switch grass and rubbish—will be the next step.

You’ve said that space is the tourist’s next frontier. Can space travel be ecofriendly? One day, space travel may even be able to help stop global warming. Within my lifetime, I hope Virgin will develop airplanes that will be able to send you from London to Australia in half an hour by pushing you out of the Earth’s atmosphere and then back down again—with almost no pollution. And if we could bring a spaceship full of helium 3 back from the moon’s surface, we could power America for a year. It sounds like pie in the sky, but it’s worth dreaming about.

Virgin Media is currently at war with Rupert Murdoch’s British Sky Broadcasting. Do you think Murdoch acted fairly in buying a major stake in the television channel ITV just as you were bidding for it? Murdoch’s [purchase] was a blatantly anti-competitive move. It cost him a couple hundred million pounds in share loss immediately—and that was just to stop us, a smaller competitor, from becoming more equal.

If Murdoch wins his takeover bid for The Wall Street Journal, would you trust him to keep his hands off the editorial pages? Why else would he buy it? He’s always gotten involved in the past, and I can’t believe that he would change his spots now.

Entrepreneurs like yourself are seen as “heroes.” Meanwhile, private-equity big shot Guy Hands recently said that people view leaders in his industry as “below traffic wardens.” Do you think private equity could learn from the way you do business? I’m sure we could learn from them, and they could learn from us. But it is always more difficult to have a good public image when you’re buying companies than when you’re growing companies.

You’re also a high-profile public figure, whereas private equity’s big hitters like Hands are totally unrecognizable. The only reason I came above the parapet is because I had a brand that was taking on much bigger brands and I didn’t have a big advertising budget, so I used myself. I’m not sure it is as essential for private-equity heads to become public figures, because their brands don’t have that challenge. It has certainly helped us, though.

What do you think will be the biggest business issue in 2008? The biggest issue, and the biggest opportunity, is green—no question. Just imagine if Virgin came up with an alternative fuel, what that would do to oil, gas and coal companies. It would have a radical effect on the economy, big corporations, everything. And that’s exactly what we’re striving for.

So, simply put, reinventing the world? [Laughs] Yes.