Thanks Phil, it seems Russ maynot have been familiar with the UN accreditation
process.
The big issues here are about the debatearound the IPCC vision of climate
change, the political priority the ParisAccord gives to emission reduction, and
how OIF and carbon dioxide removal morebroadly fit that vision.
The Convention on Biological Diversitymeeting in December 2016 agreedthat
“climate change should primarily be addressed by reducing
anthropogenicemissions by sources and by increasing removals by sinks of
greenhousegases”. Further linkedstatements indicate that sinks do not include
Ocean Iron Fertilization.
A mediareport interpreted this CBD decision as “the UN is sticking to afamiliar
line: pumping the atmosphere with tiny mirrors to deflect sunlight,boosting the
uptake of CO2 in oceans by stimulating plankton growth, or burningwood and
pumping the emissions underground could be a bad idea.” Leaving aside SRM and
wood burning,ocean management is key to climate stability so this decision
against OIFshould be much more widely discussed.
The science on ocean ironfertilization is fairly simple in its significant
contribution tobiodiversity. Claims thatstimulating plankton/algae growth is a
risk for biodiversity look like anexcuse to retain the political focus and
pressure on emission reduction.
Volcanic ash as fertiliser for the surface ocean is a scientific paper which
found“strong evidence for natural fertilisation in the iron-limited oceanic
area ofthe NE Pacific, induced by volcanic ash from the eruption of Kasatochi
volcanoin August 2008. Atmospheric and oceanic conditions were favourable to
generatea massive phytoplankton bloom in the NE Pacific Ocean which for the
first timestrongly suggests a connection between oceanic iron-fertilisation and
volcanicash supply.” The ocean response to volcanic iron fertilisation after
the eruptionof Kasatochi volcano: a regional-scale biogeochemical ocean model
study found the eruption “led to ashdeposition into the iron-limited NE Pacific
Ocean… and generated a massivephytoplankton bloom.”
This volcano releasedfar more iron than Russ George’s tiny experiment.
Considering related general observationsthat phytoplankton blooms
generateincreased fertility up the food chain and thereby enhance biodiversity,
thisUN decision gives the impression that CBD opposition to Russ George
isprimarily political, in a perception that OIF challenges the paradigm
ofemission reduction. It looks like his independent approach,
replicatingKasatochi on small scale, was just used as an excuse to attack him,
despite thelow risk and apparent success of the Haida Salmon Experiment.
Robert Tulip
<!--#yiv7256031354 P {margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;}-->
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"geoengineering" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
