You'd think that Sir Richard Branson is crazy when he came up with ideas like space tourist flights and storing your baby's umbilical cord and placental blood. But his next idea is attracting the good kind of attention.

The Virgin boss recently launched a contest looking for the person who can come up with the best way to remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The prize? A cool, US$ 25 million.

The competition was launched recently alongside former US VP, Al Gore. A panel of judges will oversee the prize, including James Lovelock (Gaia theory inventor) and NASA scientist James Hansen. Other members of the panel include British environmentalist Sir Crispin Tickells, Gore, and Australian mammalogist and paleontologist, Tim Flannery.

To win the cash prize, you have to come up with a method that will remove at least one billion tons of carbon per year from the atmosphere. Here's to hoping that those who'll enter the competition will not do it for the money or the fame, but will do it because this is a cause he/she believes in.