In January, Anthony wrote a post on the potential for climate change to become the “killer application for mass collaboration.” In it, he speculated that,

An optimist could argue that we’re in the early days of something unprecedented—thanks to the web 2.0 the entire world is beginning to collaborate around a single idea for the first time ever: changing the weather. Climate change is quickly becoming a nonpartisan issue and all citizens obviously have a stake in the outcome. So for the first time we have one global, multi-media, affordable, many-to-many communications system, and one issue on which there is growing consensus. Around the world there are hundreds, probably thousands of collaborations occurring where everyone from scientists to school children are mobilizing to do something about carbon emissions.

In the end, he reluctantly assumes a more pessimistic perspective on collaborative climate change efforts for the time being. I myself, tend to agree with the idea that climate change has to many detractors and too many avenues to achieve a result to truly galvanize people in the same way as the Human Genome Project. However, and I’m changing my early opinion on this somewhat. Maybe the best way to approach combating climate change isn’t a worldwide collective project. The solution may lie, in fact, in the sum of many efforts across a variety of disciplines.

Today, the X Prize Foundation will announce the Progressive Automotive X Prize with the goal of producing a car capable of a minimum 100 miles per gallon – CNN’s website has a succinct description of how cars will be judged and the components required in each category. According to the foundation, the reasons for creating such a contest are as follows:

• Because today’s oil consumption is not sustainable – our current use of oil endangers our health, our economy, and the political and social stability of the world.
• Because 40% of world oil output fuels the automotive industry – and, in the U.S., 65% of oil consumption is in the transportation sector.
• Because automotive emissions contribute significantly to global climate change.
• Because there are few mainstream consumer choices for clean, super-efficient vehicles that meet market needs for price, size, capability, image, safety and performance.
• Because efforts by both the automotive industry and governments to increase fuel economy have not achieved the significant course change necessary to make a substantial difference.
• Because increases in engine efficiency have been “spent” on increased vehicle power, acceleration, and weight, rather than on increased fuel economy.
• Because we believe there is great opportunity for technological change.

What I like about their rationale, is that they don’t just appeal to climate change advocates. By addressing the geopolitical and economic implications of our dependency on oil, the project looks to appeal to those who otherwise might not support an “environmental” project of this kind.

Whether or not you believe climate change is an issue, you have to admire the ambition of the X Prizes. There’s something inherently good about trying to inspire people to think big and put some serious human intelligence towards solving complex problems.  Our history is littered with bright people who have made major discoveries with a little know and a little luck – it’s sort of like trying a round peg in a square hole only to find that round pegs happen to be twice as good as square ones. Ten million reasons to answer a question doesn’t hurt either.

Now that I’ve had time to think more on it, I think the way to address climate change may be to create incentive in a wide range of disciplines to inspire people to achieve creative solutions. Maybe this won’t create a project of the same scope as the genome project but maybe – and I stress maybe – a thousand small achievements in climate change will add up to something big. I could be wrong of course but given the serious nature of the challenges facing us, the more ideas out there, the better.