The way I see it, there are (at best) three principal ways to stop increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere:

1. Pollution as usual (while waiting for a scientific miracle to come and rescue us all): We can continue to use the atmosphere as an open sewer for carbon dioxide, and then hoping that someone will invent a carbon-sucking machine to remove that polution from the atmosphere. Glory to you, Richard, for that you have tried to encourage this solution, through your Virgin Earth Challenge. But, it has not led to much yet, has it? For humanity, to comfort ourselves in hoping for such a breakthrough any soon  — with or without the encouraging power from the announcement of a billionaire's monetary prize — detached from what scientists currently know and recommend, meanwhile polluting as usual, is not a new excercise. We shall perhaps not dismiss this bet entirely. But as we are running out of time to save the planet from climate disaster, it becomes more and more clear that it is an hazardous one.
    
2. CCS: Geo scale carbon capture and storage, if achievable, could be a solution to the climate crisis, which would allow Big Oil and king Coal to go on with their business and live in peace and harmony with Mother Earth. Problem is: CCS is both expensive, energy-guzzling and technically difficult and risky. For airplanes, like those with red-painted engines and red tails with the Virgin-logo on it (just to mention an example), CCS indeed doesn’t seem like a viable option at all. (How would you capture the carbon emitted from the jet-engines, and where would you store it, when flying in the skies?)
    
3. Stop polluting: The simplest solution to the climate crisis, would be to not pollute in the first place. Of course, this will put the fossil exctractive industry of the world out of business.

Obviously, going for option #3 is the right and sensible thing to do. Bad news? Yes, for the fossil fuel extractivists. But ... It won't necessarily mean that you, Mr. Richard Branson, need to close down your Virgin travel empire.

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