 By Catherine Rodrigues ’23 In recent news, Elon Musk, the establisher of Tesla and SpaceX, has surpassed Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos as the world's richest person with an approximate net worth of $185 billion according to a BBC article titled, "Elon Musk becomes world's richest person as wealth tops $185bn". Jan. 7, Musk tweeted out to his supporters, asking for ways to "donate money that really makes a difference." Since then, he followed up with a tweet on Thursday that said, "Am donating $100M towards a prize for best carbon capture technology." Musk's idea is significant but proposes the real question of the effectiveness of "carbon-capturing technology" and why Elon Musk is so invested in it?
As Space.com states, carbon-capturing technology "is designed to snag heat-trapping carbon dioxide before it can wreak more climate havoc in Earth's atmosphere. Such equipment is already in use at some high-emission 'point sources,' such as power plants that burn fossil fuels." Being said, it makes sense that the billionaire entrepreneur who founded a solar and battery energy-storing car company wants an "in" on creating something that in a way backs up what Tesla stands for. Musk has even called our society's strong dependence on greenhouse-gas-producing fossil fuels "the dumbest experiment in human history.". Whoever takes on his challenge to formulating a carbon capturing and climate saving technology and other aspects to come would primarily benefit the planet and get an ample financial boost. His tweet has gained a lot of attention and responses from the public, such as people reply-tweeting him to plant trees as an organic way to reduce carbon dioxide in the air, but in today's age of Musk's reusable rockets and electric cars, is planting trees the way to go for the out of the box and inventive billionaire? Comments are closed.
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