WP: $25 Million Offered In Climate Challenge (Great Gore Picture)

$25 Million Offered In Climate Challenge
Tycoon Hopes to Spur Milestone Research

By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, February 10, 2007; Page A13

LONDON, Feb. 9 -- British billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson, with former vice president Al Gore at his side, offered a $25 million prize Friday to anyone who can come up with a way to blunt global climate change by removing at least a billion tons of carbon dioxide a year from the Earth's atmosphere.

Branson, saying that the "survival of our species" is imperiled by current environmental trends, said the prize was similar to cash inducements that led to some of history's most notable achievements in navigation, exploration and industry. A competition launched in the 17th century, he said, resulted in the creation of a method to accurately estimate longitude.

"I believe in our resourcefulness and in our capacity to invent solutions to the problems we have ourselves created," said Branson, who has already pledged to invest $3 billion in profits from his transportation companies, including Virgin Atlantic Airlines and Virgin Trains, to fighting global warming.

"We are now facing a planetary emergency," said Gore, whose documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth," has helped him become one of the world's leading voices on climate change issues.

The former vice president will serve as a judge in the contest, known as the Virgin Earth Challenge. He said he hoped the contest would spur scientific innovation without distracting from more practical steps people can take to battle global warming, from using energy-efficient light bulbs to pressuring politicians to confront "the crisis of our time."

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There's a different photo there now - this one is good too.
Thanks!

These are good PR moves that make Branson / Virgin look principled. Im going against the grain on this one though because I think that Branson's motives for doing this stink. He's doing this just to find a way for Virgin, which has high fuel costs, to save a penny. Also, the EU is thinking seriously about ways to curb the emissions of airlines. All that said, these "gestures" are less about the environment and more about Richard Branson (gee, who would have thought that an egotistical billionaire could be self-serving).

Are the rest of us who will benefit from it self-serving too?

:eyes:

NGU.

only certain egotistical billionaires are allowed to make a profit these days.

:rofl:

NGU.