After making headlines last year for pledging to invest $ 3 billion in renewable energy technologies, he's upped the ante on curbing climate change by offering a $ 25 million prize to whoever comes up with the best way of
removing significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Young trees don't actually start to sequester
significant amounts of carbon dioxidefor 20 years, he says, and it takes a tree 100 years to
remove a measly 3,000 pounds
of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — assuming the tree survives drought, fire, flood, disease, and other afflictions.