Geoengineering
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- GeorgesII
You can't make this shit up,
"...A private company backed by a controversial U.S. businessman has unilaterally conducted the world's most significant geoengineering project to date. Russ George, in conjunction with a First Nations village on Haida Gwaii, has dumped around 100 tonnes of iron sulphate into the Pacific Ocean in a technique known as ocean fertilization. The experiment, which is in violation of two United Nations moratoria, has outraged environmental, legal, and civic groups. ..."
http://io9.com/5952101/a-massive…
- detritus0
Worked though, didn't it?
- uan0
- scarabin0
that's awesome except for the part where he did it "to cash in on valuable carbon credits", which suggests he's gonna put all that carbon back into the world in other ways
- JG_LB0
- how can you compare those? There is so much photoshopping.qTime
- There's so much wrong with that bloody image. I hope you're kidding, JG_LBdetritus
- Somebody reads too much infowars.orgETM
- _niko0
wow. "Give me a half a tanker of iron and I will give you another ice age"
Martin's famous 1991 quip three years later at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, "Give me a half a tanker of iron and I will give you another ice age" drove a decade of research whose findings suggested that iron deficiency was not merely impacting ocean ecosystems, it also offered a key to mitigating climate change as well.
Perhaps the most dramatic support for Martin's hypothesis was seen in the aftermath of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. Environmental scientist Andrew Watson analyzed global data from that eruption and calculated that it deposited approximately 40,000 tons of iron dust into the oceans worldwide. This single fertilization event generated an easily observed global decline in atmospheric CO2 and a parallel pulsed increase in oxygen levels.
mother nature taking care of herself.
- ebertzjaw0
organic food and energy efficient lightbulbs wont stop climate change.. we need geoengineering projects like this.
- cannonball19780
This is first and foremost about what is legitimate and what isn't.
I, for one, am all for flying in the face of who's been defining that lately.
- detritus0
i_monk — my flippant response was aimed at george's surpise, more than anything.
As much as I dislike that someone's had the gall to go out and do this themselves, I'm thankful that someone's been so maverick as to bother. If this was the same guy who did the South pacific iron dump test a couple of years ago, I get why he'd lone it and give it another go.
Yes, dumping huge amounts of iron in one lump somewhere will have severe adverse effects on higher order sea creatures, but this idiot has at least proved there's worth in the endeavour.
Reign him in, make use of the data.
Distributed background use of this technique in parts of the ocean that might not only handle, but actually benefit from this, is worth investigating at least. Dumping in the only place you can practically afford, just offshore in fishing grounds, isn't smart.
- mikotondria30
100 tons of Iron Sulphate is nothing. Please understand that in the same way we can't properly conceptualise how far away the moon, or even another country is, similarly we can't understand how massive the ocean is; 3 miles deep across the whole earth, on average, 100 tonnes is 2 semi-trucks being dropped in. Utterly imperceptible unless you measure it locally and quickly. I love the ocean and everything and all that, but I don't think it's a wildly dangerous or irresponsible amount to try out, it strikes me as tiny and just enough to allow it to hang around and have a measurable effect. It might be a fantastic experiment that indicates some further understanding of the processes, at worst, the stuff will dissipate and it'll have been a waste of money. We're not talking millions of tons of oil into an estuary or along a sensitive coastline. I won't say that 'mother nature' heals itself or anything so gaian, but it's a complex system that has come to be in various states of balance and flux over 100s of millions of years - sometimes there are calamatous events that wipe out lots of life - other life seizes the niches and carries on - there's no overall direction, just the incessent adaptability of life overall to succeed in changing conditions.
I recently listened to a podcast from a geologist who'd been researching the climatic conditions at the time of the dinosaur-killing meteorite impact, and was stunned by what he said. The impact threw billions of tons of white hot quartz up into sub-orbit, which rained down on every part of the planet within 2 hours, setting fire to * every forest and plant * on the earth, think about it. Fantastic.
- monNom0
In other news, BP added clarification on the deepwater horizon 'ocean fertilization' experiment. They expect that oleophyllic (oil-loving) bacteria populations will flourish thanks in no small part to the release of an abundant new food source from the deepwater wellls.
Thanks BP!
- GeorgesII0
The problem is we have no clue what will be the long term effects,
if you read the article it says:
"It is difficult if not impossible to detect and describe important effects that we know might occur months or years later," said John Cullen , an oceanographer at Dalhousie University. "Some possible effects, such as deep-water oxygen depletion and alteration of distant food webs, should rule out ocean manipulation. History is full of examples of ecological manipulations that backfired."this is why I can't pump some experimental mixture of gas in my appartment thinking it will make me a fuckn super hero, maybe it will but at the same time, I may kill the entire neighboorhood.