Friday, May 11, 2007

Stop Global Warming—The $100 Billion Prize


An overwhelming majority of the world's scientists now agree that Global Warming is frighteningly real—and it's firing on all burners. The warming is caused by a thickening atmospheric layer of pollution, mostly carbon dioxide, that the rich, industrialized nations are spewing into space. Here's what happens: the energy beamed to us from the sun has a very short wavelength that allows it to pass easily through our pollution layer. The world's surface absorbs most of this solar energy and then, for billions of years, has been reflecting some of it back to space as infrared radiation. But here's where our new villain takes the stage: the atmosphere's "dirty space blanket" traps a portion of this infrared energy and recycles it back down to earth as heat.

This phenomenon is causing average temperatures to rise at the fastest rate in millions of years. The result will be horrendous. Hurricanes bigger than Katrina will become typical. Polar ice caps will continue melting and breaking up. Polar bears will be confused and then begin to disappear as their habitat disappears. And, of course, sea levels will rise noticeably. Oh, you can't quite perceive it yet when dipping your toes at the beach—but some scientific studies predict a 3-foot rise in sea levels by 2030. That would turn each of America's east coast cities into a sort of "Venice" with canals instead of streets. And a 3-foot rise also means certain death for a billion or so desperately poor people who live in the world's lowest-lying countries. Some studies predict as much as a 20-foot rise in sea levels by 2100. Tragically, more billions would perish.

But, hell, you already know this. It's probably accurate to say that most thoughtful, everyday citizens of the world know it. (We will pause here to gape with unbelieving eyes at a few politicians in Washington DC who, with their heads buried ostrich-like in the sand, remain steadfast members of a dwindling band of "GWD"—Global Warming Deniers.)

So, speaking on behalf of our abused, gasping, wheezing little planet, I'd like to suggest that we need a Big Idea. And the guiding principle of this blog is that the best way to get Big Ideas is to picture them. Before you run the video, let me explain what "The $100 Billion Prize" is all about. It's cash, folks. HUGE cash. One-tenth of a trillion dollars as a winner-take-all prize to the scientists or engineers who concoct a brilliant Big Idea to dissipate the pollution layer and begin reversing the climbing temperatures.

Who pays for the prize? It should be funded by the world's worst-polluting nations, with their shares calculated according to their percentage contribution to the planet's pollution layer. And it would be an incredible bargain. After all, if sea levels rise by 3 feet in the next 25 years, my home town of New York City will probably try to cope by building a system of dikes and levees around Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island. What would you guess that immense undertaking would cost in 2030 dollars? I'll wing a number—$1 trillion. Now, that puts a $100 billion prize in perspective—it's a mere drop in the bucket. And if we earthlings are lucky enough to have someone win it, then the entire planet—not just New York City—is a big, big winner.

If the video inspires you to come up with an idea, post it on this blog. If I like it, I'll crank out another video and sketch your idea for the world to see—giving you full credit of course. You could end up getting more than your fifteen minutes of fame. You could end up richer than Bill Gates. (He's currently worth a measly $72 billion.)

1 comment:

jonathan said...

Looks like OxFam agrees with you.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070528/ts_nm/g8_climate_oxfam_dc_1;_ylt=AkuRXHwvfZQRfrIk5gAIn30E1vAI