Not sure why you wrote "Sorry Dan" on this Alvia. "He would not allow businesses to get out of painful and expensive measures to limit carbon emissions by claiming credit for his oceanic fertilization program, because the programs to stop adding more must continue, he said."
Is this a view that you have seen me promote? I would hope not. Victor unfortunately is uninformed about how cap and trade works. Regardless of your opinion about whether cap and trade is an effective strategy or not-- simply adding more supply to the offset side does not allow businesses to get out of their obligations. That's why they call it "cap" and trade. It's probably worth a letter to him on this, since this is about the 5th time I've seen him make this same remark. The reality is that there is a real scarcity of quality offsets and an overabundance of allocations. Can we fix it? D On Sep 29, 6:29 am, "Alvia Gaskill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > http://nbbusinessjournal.canadaeast.com/journal/article/430506 > > Global Warming Fertilizing oceans to grow plankton could remove a gigatonne > of carbon per year, lecturer believes > B1 > DERWIN GOWAN > TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL > > Nothing, at this stage, will save the Greenland ice cap from melting, raising > oceans several feet, says Victor Shahed Smetacek. > > 2 of 2 > > AP > The ice inlet outside the city of Ilulissat on Greenland is one of the places > in the world where climate changes can first be seen. > > Submitted Photo > Dr. Victor Smetacek > Only a massive feat of "geo-engineering" can save the Antarctic ice cap from > doing the same, the professor of bio-oceanography at the University of > Bremen, Germany, said in an interview from Halifax. > > Humanity, led by the United Nations, must remove huge quantities of carbon > dioxide from the air over the next century, he will argue in an address at > Mount Allison University this week. > > Smetacek, born in India of an Indian mother and German father, attended the > conference in Halifax this month of the International Council for the > Exploration of the Sea. > > A talk on rising oceans might interest an audience at a university in > Sackville, on the Tantramar marsh. > > Today, he will speak as part of the President's Speakers Series on Climate > Change and Global Citizenship. On Tuesday he will launch the vice-president's > seminar series Evolution: 150 Years of Darwin with a lecture, "Understanding > plankton evolution in the framework of the arms race." > > Phytoplankton, microscopic organisms, might save humanity, he argues. > > Smetacek quite seriously proposes to fertilize vast areas of the southern > oceans deficient in iron to promote plankton to absorb carbon dioxide from > the air through photosynthetic uptake. > > Skeletons of dead plankton compose a large part of the sludge at the bottom > of deep oceans. So, scientists must figure out how to promote plankton that > remove carbon from the air, then take it to the bottom when they die. > > We might remove a gigatonne - one trillion kilograms - of carbon from the air > each year, Smetacek says. Removing carbon at this rate might save the south > polar ice cap if other efforts continue to stop adding more carbon, he said. > > [A rather big IF. One GtC per year is about 10% of human emissions today, > expected to rise over the coming decades. The one GtC figure is also at the > upper limit of what has been estimated as possible if all applicable areas > are subjected to OIF. That includes the equatorial Pacific and the area in > the N. Pacific. Also, I don't see how reducing CO2 forcing by 10% from today > will make much of a difference if other emission sources continue. His > statement that this might save the Antarctic ice cap if "other efforts > continue to stop adding more carbon" only makes sense if there were such > efforts and on a massive scale. There aren't. AG] > > Depositing a whole gigatonne of carbon at the bottom of the sea might sound > like an effort worthy of Archimedes, the ancient Greek mathematician and > engineer who said that he could move the Earth if he had a place to stand > with his pry bar. > > However, it would take only five to 10 ocean-going ships, possibly tankers or > ore carriers, to fertilize the oceans each year with iron sulphate, a waste > product from smelting titanium and iron, he said. > > The ships would drift with wind and current. They might accommodate tourists, > maybe summer students, who would underwrite part of the cost. They might even > lend their labour to shovel the stuff overboard. > > [It was my understanding that to be effective, the iron would have to be in a > soluble form before release into the water. AG] > > The project would cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars, rather than > the billions or trillions it would costs for other geo-engineering proposals > - such as seeding the upper atmosphere with particles to reflect sunlight > back into space, Smetacek said. It could save hundrds of millions of people > from being displaced, he said. > > Efforts to reduce carbon emissions will not save the ice-caps without > removing what we have already added over the past couple of centuries. "The > amount of C02 we remove is too little to make any difference if we keep > business as usual," he said. [Correcto! AG.] > > Adding a gigatonne of carbon each year to the deep ocean would not > dangerously acidify seas, which already hold 38,000 gigatonnes of the > element, he said. > > Further, algae blooms would not threaten coastal fisheries by adding > nutrients in the to the oceanic regions he has in mind. > > "I would like the United Nations to organize this effort," he said. "It > should not under any circumstances be a private enterprise undertaking, > because it has to be controlled. > > He proposes a long-term program to remove 100 to 200 megatonnes [Must mean > gigatonnes. AG] of carbon at one gigatonne per year, enough, he hopes, to > keep the poles cold. [I just don't see how this would make any difference, > unless the calculation is based on half of the emissions being absorbed by > nature immediately, in which case, the net increase in CO2 in the atmosphere > is around 4 GtC per year. Over 100 years, then his plan would remove 100 > GtC, while we have added 400 GtC (assuming present rates continue). Yes, I > know some of the additional carbon will have also been absorbed, but the net > increase is still enough to impact the climate. AG] > > He would not allow businesses to get out of painful and expensive measures to > limit carbon emissions by claiming credit for his oceanic fertilization > program, because the programs to stop adding more must continue, he said. > [Sorry, Dan. AG] > > "We have to develop a whole new way of thinking," he said. "That is the > absolute first order of the day, reducing emissions." > > Smetacek will speak in the Crabtree Auditorium at 7 p.m. tonight on ocean > fertilization. He will speak in the Wu Centre (Dunn Building) at 7 p.m. > Tuesday on the evolution of phytoplankton. Admission is free. > > icon_previous.gif > < 1KViewDownload > > icon_next.gif > < 1KViewDownload > > image.php?id=189968&size=265x0 > 7KViewDownload > > image.php?id=189969&size=265x0 > 41KViewDownload --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. 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