BERLIN, GERMANY: The number crunchers have it wrong. Energy isn't a chart; it's a culture.

Sure, Amsterdam is flat as a pancake. Still, yesterday I couldn't believe I saw more bicyclists in the Dutch capital than I ever had in my time in China, where filmstrips we all saw for years portrayed throngs of Beijing denizens pedaling the streets full.

Nary a car to be found in Amsterdam in 2008, and the Chinese capital is clogged with Buicks and SUVs.

It's taken me two weeks from Portugal to Germany, watching wind turbines blink and spin slowly as I sit aboard trains that have entire wagons devoted to bikes.

You see a lot of guys in suits on CNBC and such talking about their usually incorrect predictions for oil supply and demand: how much is speculation and how much is pure market movement...

But what I'll tell you, and what you can put your money on, is that the world's elite investors are going green.

The Global Greening of Energy and Investments

Investment powerhouse Merrill Lynch and leading consulting firm Capgemini released their World Wealth Report in June, which showed among other things that the world's most successful people are going green in ever greater numbers.

Among the high net-worth individuals—people with more than $1 million in value where their homes are not included—half say they're putting money into clean and renewable energy business opportunities.

What's interesting, though, is that the world's wealthy didn't cite the melting of the icecaps or food price concerns as their reasons for betting on sectors from tidal energy to biodegradable plastics...

They want the filthy lucre. Euros, pounds, dollars...

And like bicyclists in Europe are much more common than in the States, American investors in the World Wealth Report are a long way off pace.

Only 5% of HNWIs in the U.S. said they invest in green initiatives of any kind—a meager 10% of the worldwide average.

Of the Yankees who did say they're going green, profit potential wasn't even at the top of the list. Instead, it was for social concerns, which of course are valid.

After all, aside from taking investors' pulse, I've spoken to working people on the street in Lisbon, Madrid, Marseille, and of course here in Berlin about what renewable energy means to them... Trabalho, trabajo, les boulots...

Green Energy: Creating Jobs and Profits

Jobs.

They answer me the same way, in whatever language we're speaking. It's another major point for clean energy as part of a new global reality. That's why governments are helping to cultivate home-grown industries where they have comparative advantage. In Spain it's the sun, Portugal's got wind and waves, and here in Germany it's a blend of scientific expertise and an old industrial base that is turning former Communist East Germany into a hotbed of solar energy activity.

The stock market can only yield feel-good dividends after earnings and share prices actually rise. Plenty of ethanol investors who banked on either the inevitability or responsibility of biofuels have gotten singed in the past year of oil turmoil, which is why we've steered you away from those stocks with very few exceptions.

Indeed, the international investors who are going green are making more educated decisions. That's what we've found with our new Green Chip International service, where we invest in foreign-listed new energy stocks.

The fact is that Wall Street is no longer the only field for the best international equities players. London, Hong Kong, and even Madrid are attracting more listings because of less burdensome accounting and because as I say, the business culture outside of New York is more receptive to hearing real strategies for long-term energy options.

These days the NYSE and Nasdaq are more known around the world as the place where 20th century fortunes were made and bubbles burst.

Indian, German, Israeli and African investors I talk to all the time have their money spread around the globe, and with lightning-quick internet trading and a world's worth of information in your computer, the only risk is keeping your money in one place.

It's a new culture free of boundaries...

Green Chip International: A Global Look at Green Stocks

And as I sit here looking out the window just blocks from where the Berlin Wall stood until 19 years ago, I'm reminded of how freely innovation and investment flow in 2008.

This past weekend, French President Nicolas Sarkozy convened an impressive array of 42 European, North African, and Middle Eastern countries in an effort to establish a new Mediterranean Union.

Rumblings are widespread that this new network around the Middle Sea will be heavy on renewable energy cooperation, sharing technology and economic growth.

With Green Chip International, we're already delivering returns in markets around the world where few Americans have even thought to venture. But the intrepid ones are smiling and riding the wave of wealth that's pouring into international clean energy.

And they're happy to count themselves in the head of the pack while those stuck to Wall Street are biting their nails to the quick.

Take a look at Green Chip International. It's a stone's throw away from our tremendously successful Green Chip Stocks service, but with a decidedly more global focus.

And we know we're not alone in thinking that such a focus translates to a real advantage in today's market.

Bis spaeter,

Sam Hopkins