2.10.2007
Billionaire Offers US$25M Prise to Fight 'Warming' (WashingtonPost.com)
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, February 9, 2007; 9:52 AM
LONDON, Feb. 9 -- British billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson, with former vice president Al Gore at his side, on Friday offered a $25 million prize for 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.
"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, who has become one of the world's leading voices on climate change issues, most lately with his documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth." Gore, who will serve as a judge in the Virgin Earth Challenge, said he hoped the contest would spur scientific innovation without distracting from more practical steps people can take to battle global warming, such as using energy-efficient light bulbs or pressuring politicians to confront "the crisis of our time."
"It's a challenge to the moral imagination of humankind," Gore said at a packed news conference, where several noted climate scientists and authors attended, provided videotaped endorsements or appeared by live video-link.
(More ... Washington Post > Nation > Special Reports > Global Warming)
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, February 9, 2007; 9:52 AM
LONDON, Feb. 9 -- British billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson, with former vice president Al Gore at his side, on Friday offered a $25 million prize for 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.
"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, who has become one of the world's leading voices on climate change issues, most lately with his documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth." Gore, who will serve as a judge in the Virgin Earth Challenge, said he hoped the contest would spur scientific innovation without distracting from more practical steps people can take to battle global warming, such as using energy-efficient light bulbs or pressuring politicians to confront "the crisis of our time."
"It's a challenge to the moral imagination of humankind," Gore said at a packed news conference, where several noted climate scientists and authors attended, provided videotaped endorsements or appeared by live video-link.
(More ... Washington Post > Nation > Special Reports > Global Warming)
Labels: Climate Change, Gore, Washington Post
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