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Courtesy of one Mr. Richard Branson.
It's a start.
Kevin
The head of Virgin Group said at the launch in London, UK, that the prize was not for removing emissions from power plants before they reach the atmosphere and storing them deep underground – an existing technology known as carbon capture and sequestration.
Instead, the brief is to devise a system to remove a "significant amount" of greenhouse gases – equivalent to 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide or more – every year from the atmosphere for at least a decade...The initial closing date for Branson's Earth Challenge is 8 February 2010. If the judges deem that no design submitted by that stage is worthy of the prize, it will re-open for two more year-long phases.
Extraordinary things
Branson has received impressive backing for his new environmental initiative. His five co-judges are former US vice president Al Gore, Jim Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute, James Lovelock, the father of the Gaia theory, Australian conservationist Tim Flannery, and Crispin Tickell, director of the Policy Foresight Programme at Oxford University, UK.
Steve Howard, chief executive of The Climate Group and an advisor to the judges, said: "For $25 million, people will do extraordinary things. It's to fire people up and say: 'let's do this.'"
Environmentalists have welcomed the initiative, but Friends of the Earth said it should not distract from the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions at source, "including unsustainable air travel".
Celine Herweijer, climatologist at US-based Risk Management Solutions, says: "While we should welcome initiatives like this that aim to limit the amount of climate change in the future, we also need more creative solutions to the problems that climate change is already causing."
Instead, the brief is to devise a system to remove a "significant amount" of greenhouse gases – equivalent to 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide or more – every year from the atmosphere for at least a decade...The initial closing date for Branson's Earth Challenge is 8 February 2010. If the judges deem that no design submitted by that stage is worthy of the prize, it will re-open for two more year-long phases.
Extraordinary things
Branson has received impressive backing for his new environmental initiative. His five co-judges are former US vice president Al Gore, Jim Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute, James Lovelock, the father of the Gaia theory, Australian conservationist Tim Flannery, and Crispin Tickell, director of the Policy Foresight Programme at Oxford University, UK.
Steve Howard, chief executive of The Climate Group and an advisor to the judges, said: "For $25 million, people will do extraordinary things. It's to fire people up and say: 'let's do this.'"
Environmentalists have welcomed the initiative, but Friends of the Earth said it should not distract from the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions at source, "including unsustainable air travel".
Celine Herweijer, climatologist at US-based Risk Management Solutions, says: "While we should welcome initiatives like this that aim to limit the amount of climate change in the future, we also need more creative solutions to the problems that climate change is already causing."
Kevin
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