Save The World

How would you like to win 25 million dollars?

I don't know if you have heard about Al Gore and Knight Richard Branson's Virgin Earth Challenge, but it is a competition to invent a device or process to actively reduce the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The prize is 25 million dollars.

Do you want to win?

Carbon dioxide is one of the major greenhouse gases. If we could reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it would go a long way towards reversing the greenhouse effect.

Plants all around the world absorb carbon dioxide and turn it into oxygen, but a very large portion of the oxygen is actually produced by blue-green algae floating around in the ocean. There are also blue-green algae that can be found in the air, airborne algae.

My hypothesis, yes I am going to use the fancy name for an idea, is that if we seed hurricanes and tropical storms with airborne blue-green algae, we will see a significant reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Hurricanes produce a very friendly environment for these airborne bacteria, as well as circulating and agitating the earths atmosphere. They are naturally occurring giant vacuums, sucking in air, moisture, and energy.

Moreover, the life of a hurricane is lived mostly over water, and I believe that most of the algae will precipitate out of the atmosphere before the hurricane reaches land.
In the ocean waters, the algae will either continue to produce oxygen or will be eaten and absorbed by other organisms.

I don't have a team of grad students to kick around, the money to grow blue-green algae in large quantities, fly planes over hurricanes to drop it, nor instruments to check carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. You might have these things, and you should use them to test my hypothesis and prove to judges Al Gore, Knight Richard Branson, James Lovelock, Tim Flannery, Dr. James E. Hansen, Knight Crispin Tickell, and Paula Abdul that I am right.

You can save the world and win millions of dollars. You can also show that you are a nice guy or girl by giving me some of that money, so I can go to the dentist. Problems are problems. You don't have to be a cheerleader with super powers to save the world and be a hero.

I know that not all of you, my loyal readers, are glaciologists, marine biologists, chemists, climatologists, and the like, but if you know someone who is, please pass this on to them. Don't forget to encourage them to be nice, and give me some of the prize money.

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