Sludge Watch ==> Reward Offered: $25M to save Earth from Green house Gases

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Financial reward is mingled with altruism in this cash incentive to save the 
planet from human excess.

Ok you engineer types...go to it!
..............................................................


http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2009530,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12

Virgin boss offers $25m reward to save Earth


James Sturcke and agencies
Friday February 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

   Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson
Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson. Photograph: Chris Hondros/Getty Images

Sir Richard Branson today offered a $25m (£12.8m) prize for scientists who 
find a way to help save the planet from the effects of climate change.

Flanked by the former US vice-president Al Gore and other environmentalists, 
the boss of Virgin Atlantic airlines called for scientists to come up with a 
way to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Describing the prize as the largest ever offered, Sir Richard compared it to 
the competition to devise a method of accurately estimating longitude. He 
denied that being the head of an airline prevented him from being concerned 
about climate change.


"Let's confront the airline question. I have an airline. I can afford to 
ground that airline today. My family have got businesses in mobile phones 
and other businesses, but if we do ground that airline today, British 
Airways will just take up the space.

"So what we are doing is making sure we acquire the most carbon 
dioxide-friendly planes. We're making sure that 100% of profits we make from 
our transportation businesses are put back into things like the prize we've 
offered today."

Sir Richard said he had been influenced by James Lovelock, who developed the 
Gaia Theory, which suggests that the world may already have crossed a 
"tipping point".

"Today we have a threat. Still we have to convince many people that the 
threat is urgent and real and there is no superhero. We have only our own 
ingenuity and we have no hope of a meaningful solution unless we find a way 
to work together," he said.

Mr Gore said global warming was man-made and was akin to the planet 
suffering from a "fever as a result".

"It is a challenge of moral imagination of humankind to accept the reality 
of the situation we are facing. We are not used to this. There is nothing in 
our prior history that equips us to think that we could be in the process of 
destroying the inhabitability of the planet," he said.

Humans had slipped into a way of thinking that was centred on "short-term 
gratification", and now faced the challenge of "transforming ouselves and 
changing the structures of everything we do", he said.

In September last year Mr Gore and Sir Richard appeared on US television to 
discuss the Virgin boss's pledge to invest £1.6bn in alternative fuel 
development.