Virgin's Branson Offers $25M Global Warming Prize

Airline tycoon Richard Branson wants to give you $25 million. All you have to do in return is come up with a way to scrub 10 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.

Feeling motivated? Good. Let's get specific.

Branson, flanked by global warming campaigners Al Gore and Crispin Tickell, announced today the Virgin Earth Challenge — a $25 million prize for the first person to dream up a way of removing one billion metric tons of carbon gases a year from the atmosphere for 10 years. Pull this off, and you'll get $5 million at the outset and the remaining $20 million in ten years when it's been shown beyond question that your brainstorm holds water.

The aim is to spark innovations that will save humanity from its current suicidal trajectory, Branson told reporters:

"Man created the problem and therefore man should solve the problem. Unless we can devise a way of removing CO2 from the earth's atmosphere, we will lose half of all species on earth, all the coral reefs, 100 million people will be displaced, farmlands will become deserts and rain forests wastelands."

Um, don't you own an airline? Branson was asked. "I could ground my airline today, but British Airways would simply take its place," he responded, adding that Virgin is investing heavily in cleaner engines and fuels.

Now that there's a clear monetary incentive to solve this problem — expressed in terms the average TV viewer can understand — maybe we can stop arguing about the global warming "hoax" and get to work before we fry in our own hubris. What do you think of Branson's approach? Is this a winning strategy? What do you think the winning answer will look like?

[Source: Reuters]