Regardless of whatever conclusions I reach about anthropogenic climate change, I totally appreciate this approach to the greenies' concerns:

Real Climate: Save the World! Earn $25 million!

On February 9, The Virgin Group chairman Sir Richard Branson announced a $25 million prize for anyone who can demonstrate “a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth’s climate.”

It's called the Virgin Earth Challenge and the basic challenge is to figure out a method to remove 1 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere in a way that can make money.

Wouldn't it be cool if they could suck carbon out of the air and turn it into diamonds?

What I love about this proposal is:
1) It is predicated by the ability to make money from it.
2) It doesn't involve passing laws or regulations on businesses.

If successful, this really could lead to new, efficient technology that actually runs on waste carbon that is otherwise mostly lost to the air.

I just hope this doesn't suffocate the rain forests.

Posted by: Flibbertigibbet at 07:55 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 There was recently a show on PBS about global DIMMING. Apparently, 80% of global warming is reduced by the DIMMING effect of dirty pollution (such as China produces with it's sooty coal). If we reduce the soot, it will INCREASE the effect of global warming. I saw a guy who wants to put millions of little satellites in space between earth and sun that can be controlled like little blinds to reduce the amount of light reaching the earth. My prediction: some solution meant to be a temporary stopgap like this will become a permanent part of planetary ecology . . . forever!

Posted by: Dan at March 28, 2007 09:22 AM (3MGlp)

2 Yes, in my brief forays into the global warming discussion, I've seen a couple of these oddball solutions suggested. Sensible people on both sides tend to reject things like clouds of satellites and sulfur compounds because they're hair-brained and may have unpredicted results!

Posted by: Trey Givens at March 28, 2007 12:08 PM (ErOeR)

3 You can imagine what the eco-fascists will think:

This will suck all the CO2 from the atmo and cause global cooling and suffocate all plants! That is, anything man does (except commit suicide) is bad for the environment. Man evil!

Posted by: Tom Rexton at March 28, 2007 03:45 PM (vJ3Vq)

4 Trey,

I don't understand your applause of this. Since AGW does not exist, then this is nothing more than a huge waste of money. The fact that people are voluntarily wasting it only makes it slightly less idiotic. It is still idiotic, though.

Posted by: Inspector at March 28, 2007 06:38 PM (mDU6h)

5 I explained my applause of it.

Regardless of whether or not ACC/AGW exists, laws and regulations are being passed to prevent it all over the world and the US will very likely begin enacting its own stultifying, irritating laws to that end.

If this contest is successful, then it will help head off some of those horrible laws.

The fact that it is an individual throwing his money into this makes all the difference in the world.

Posted by: Trey Givens at March 29, 2007 02:09 AM (rQ+Fh)

6 I get what you mean. Still, I would have preferred if you put it more like this:

----------------

Let's be clear about what this is: some private individual throwing his money into the abyss to chase off imaginary demons that don't exist. The good news is that his waste of money may prevent irrational thugs from forcing me to waste mine.

So... yay?

Posted by: Inspector at March 31, 2007 04:27 AM (cCN6/)

7 While we're on the subject,

Check out the previous issue of Popular Mechanics:

There's a company that invented a plasma incinerator. It disintegrates garbage. No pollution; it just zaps it into component molecules, the gases of which spin a turbine and power the machine. It actually *exports* electricity into the power grid. Then it bottles the gases and sells them, since they are pure hydrogen and nitrogen and such.

It emits zero pollution, turning the garbage into a glass-like inert slag which is useful as a building material. They already have a few of them up, running, and making profits.

Meanwhile, government-mandated recycling has yet to make a profit (in anything except aluminum, the recycling of which existed before the government came along), and emits all kinds of nasty pollution.

So that's hippies 0, capitalists 1.

Posted by: Inspector at March 31, 2007 04:33 AM (cCN6/)

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