It would be hard to find someone happier than an investor who bought Tesla Motors stock two years ago and has held on since

It would be hard to find someone happier than an investor who bought Tesla Motors stock two years ago and has held on since. Sure, there have been bumps in the road and piques of volatility along the way but since March 2013 Tesla has jumped over 450 percent.

Still, the company has been a lightning rod for controversy. Critics say that Tesla, for all the outsized gains and attention, has yet to produce a single dime of profit. Such critics would be correct.

At the same time, however, Tesla enthusiasts – some of whom are a quite a bit wealthier today than they were two years ago depending on their initial investment – counter this argument by saying that profits can wait. Every successful company, they say, must build scale and take chances to achieve sustainable, long-term term growth, and that requires making targeted, deep investments. This would is also correct.

The central issue is not whether the company has the right vision for success (though I believe that it does). Rather, the most important thing about Tesla is ensuring that it has the resources to ensure that it does succeed. That’s because its prosperity is crucial, not just for shareholders, management or employees but for the health and general welfare of everyone.

Indeed, due to devastating impacts of global climate change Tesla’s fortunes, in many ways, are tied to the future of the planet, since if companies like this fail, then there’s no telling what the earth could look like in 50 years.

If that sounds too alarmist, it’s not. Or if you would like to dispute the notion of climate change altogether, you shouldn’t. There is consensus among most reputable scientists that the earth is warming at an alarming rate. The science is so convincing, in fact, that anyone who refutes it either has an agenda or simply hasn’t studied the issue closely enough.