This is important malarkey.
LONDON - British tycoon Sir Richard Branson on Friday announced a $25
million prize for a way to extract a billion tons or more of carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere each year.
The Virgin Group chairman was joined by former Vice President Al Gore
and other leading environmentalists as he announced the Virgin Earth
Challenge prize.
Branson compared it to the competition launched in 1675 to devise a
method of estimating longitude accurately. It was 60 years before
English clock maker John Harrison discovered an accurate method and
received his prize from King George III.
"The Earth cannot wait 60 years. We need everybody capable of
discovering an answer to put their minds to it today," Branson said.
Gore said the planet had a "fever" that had to be taken seriously.
"Up until now, what has not been asked seriously on a systematic basis
is, is there some way that some of that extra carbon dioxide may be
scavenged effectively out of the atmosphere? And no one knows the answer
to that," Gore said.
A landmark report last week </id> by the world’s leading
climate scientists and government officials warned that global warming
will continue for centuries, creating a far different planet in 100
years, and that it is "very likely" that manmade emissions of carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse cases are the reason.
**How the contest works**
Entries will be evaluated by Branson and Gore, as well as NASA climate
scientist James Hansen; James Lovelock, who devised the Gaia theory of
Earth's ecosystems; British environmentalist Sir Crispin Tickell; and
Australian paleontologist Tim Flannery.
The winner will have to come up with a way of removing one billion tons
of carbon gases a year from the atmosphere for 10 years — with $5
million of the prize being paid at the start and the remaining $20
million at the end.
If no winner is identified after five years the judges can decide to
extend the contest.
"This is the world’s first deliberate attempt at planetary engineering,"
Flannery said via videolink from Sydney. "We are at the last moment.
Once we reach the tipping point it will have been taken out of our hands."
