So far the issue seems to be centered on reducing emissions. In Branson's favour: he has raised the issue of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Surely at the rate emissions are accelerating this is something worth at least considering?

>> If "Man" is about to jump in and fix the carbon problem, then we'll all be able to carry on with business as usual, right? >>

Frontier mentality is alive and well.
but sadly I have seen its tombstone.
Here is an example of "let it rest, we can do it, err tomorrow!"
>> we already have all the technology that we need to save ourselves>>

Sorry no you haven't.... you have not even postulated the correct reasons for GCC.

>> The new, post-carbon civilization will require that we be open to radically new ways of living. >>

Exactly, and the debate about the way forward has not even started. Censure is alive and thriving.

MONEY... who has all the money... polluters do, they show complete disrespect...psychopaths.

So why can't visionaries suceed, because they do not have the dirty money... and no one will listen.

Solution:-  The people will take control into their own hands, and then there will be no control at all.

Just too late.

The real winning "device"?  Conservation land and organic farming.  Mega-devices.

Prairie National Park (and windfarm).  And biogas digestion to make organic fertilizer.

7 million square miles of prairie would sequester all present uS CO2.  Too big?!  Yes, but using organic farming and conservation land could still sequester one third.  And plugin cars, wind/wave power, solar,biogas, and conservation could eliminate most  of present cO2.

So the sequestration land could actually remove CO2 already in the atmosphere on a net basis.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Well, it would not have occurred to me to make much of Richard Branson's prize offer.  But I agree with the cautions, regarding wrong attitude and wrong message, raised by Tom Philpott and Kelpie Wilson.  Kelpie's much more physical caution, regarding tampering with the oceans as a location of carbon storage, is a very serious matter indeed.  As it is, the acidity of ocean waters is a matter of great concern.  The viability of whole communities, food chains, ecosystems is in doubt.

Kelpie's concluding reference to Henry Adams, and his religious/cultural/art-historical classic "Mont Saint-Michel and Chartes," is remarkable, even startling.  One usually does not see connexions made by environmentalist writers, between the Virgin Mary, that Jewish kid who, much to everyone's surprise, gave birth, to a boy whom they named Jesus, and the Goddess Mother Earth.  Adams's reading of medieval civilization, and the cult of the Virgin Mary, is brilliant; and perhaps it is even correct.  Anyway, he is close enough.

But, on the other hand, it should be understood that the divinized female figure called Earth by many environmentalists is usually identified with the ancient Greek mythological primal figure, Gaia.  Or, latinized, Gaea.  The name literally means "Earth."

And she was no virgin.  In fact, when we first see her, in Hesiod's Theogony, she is joined in constant copulation with Ouranos, latinized as Uranus, the Sky.  She gives birth to all kinds of monstrous children, and hates how Ouranos hates them.  One bunch of her kids, the Titans, is anthropomorphic; and she beseeches the most resourceful of them, Kronos, to do something about his father, to get him to stop making babies.  So, clever Oedipal lad that he is, he takes a sickle, and swings it around smartly, lopping off his father's genitals.  Ouranos moves upward, fast, in great pain, fathering no more children, but leaving a great deal of breathing space henceforth for those who have already been born.

The genitals fall into the Mediterranean Sea, and become the island of Cyprus.  (And if you look on a map, squintily, with some imagination, at the island of Cyprus, you might just see ... oh, never mind.)  From the blood that bubbled up, foaming, at the base of the severed scrotum (ah ha!, a word in the news!), arises the goddess Aphrodite, mistress of all things having to do with sexual attraction and sexual activity.

Cf. the MC, in "Cabaret," played unforgettably by Joel Grey.  After introducing the all-girl band, he comments, "and each and evwy vwone, a wirgin! ... What!, you don't believe me?!  Ask Helga!  [And he gives Helga a loud hard slap on her behind.  Helga pretends to protest, and giggles.]  Ha ha ha ha ha!"

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

Mother Nature has great 'gadgets'  for removing CO2,  if only we could keep ourselves from clearcutting them down.  

I'm no scientist but it seems to me the twin problems of carbon emissions and pollution are the direct results of over-population and over-indulgence.

Branson's (b)millions could better be spent on health education or making current sustainable technologies available to those who can't afford them.