How would you like to win $25million? You’d also have the kudos as being known as the man/woman or group who helped save the earth as well! Sir Richard Branson and Al Gore have announced the launch of a competition to help fight climate change and details can be found at Virgin Earth and you can view a CBS news broadcast over at Youtube.
According to the official press release:
The Virgin Earth Challenge will award $25 million to the individual or group who are able to demonstrate a commercially viable design which will result in the net removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases each year for at least ten years without countervailing harmful effects. This removal must have long term effects and contribute materially to the stability of the Earth’s climate.
As with all competitions, it’s important to read the terms and conditions, and in the press release this was found:
The Virgin Earth Challenge will initially be open for five years; the judges will meet annually to determine whether a design has been submitted during the previous year that in their view should win the prize and, if so, they may award the prize without waiting for the five year period to elapse. If no winner has been selected at the end of five years, the judges may decide to roll the prize forward for a further period on the same.
Richard Branson compares the competition as being along the same lines as that was offered in 1714 for developing a device capable of measuring longitude. The prize was eventually won in 1773 by John Harrison, however judging by The IPCC’s report on climate change, which doesn’t give us that much time, one would hope that it doesn’t take nearly 60 years to find a winner for Branson’s competition.
The question is - can someone really come up with a solution? Or is this merely a clever way for Branson and Gore to continue hammering the Fight Climate Change message, which is now rarely out of the news. If you consider that any winner would need to understand atmospheric chemistry on a large scale, conduct extensive research and pilot testing - and do it within initially 5 years, the prize money may not come to close to the amount required to undertake such experimentation, especially as it will be at least 10 years, after implementation, before the prize is awarded.
Of course, going down as the person to save the planet might be worth more than $25million, whilst actually reversing the affects of CO2 emissions and saving the planet would be invaluable to everyone.
Who knows if a winner will be found. In the meantime, it’s still down to individuals, companies and governments to do all they can to help fight climate change - and that would result in everyone being a winner.