I'm curious, what do you all think of Ocean Iron Fertilizaton? We seem to have saturated the oceans ability to absorb CO2 and increased the oceans acidity levels. They say an increase in phytoplankton blooms would increase the oceans ability to absolrb CO2. Seeding the oceans with iron increases phtoplankton which increase CO2 absorption and which also increases the activity of ocean species in the area.
This past May he UN put a moratorium on Ocean Iron Fertilization, but the U.S. did not sign up on this. First this company called Planktos gave up on its OIF plans and now a company called Climos is still going ahead with its plans for OIF of a small part of the southern ocean. I think experiments like these need to go on. Run off from land based fertilizers have given rise to a species of plankton that have harmed places like the barrier reef, but thats no reason to put a halt to exploring OIF which has nothing to do with polluting the oceans. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ETC Group News Release Friday, May 30, 2008 www.etcgroup.org The World Torpedoes Ocean Fertilization: End of Round One on Geo-Engineering 191 countries agree to a landmark moratorium on ocean CO2 sequestration As the ninth meeting of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) draws to a close in Bonn, Germany the world’s governments are set to unanimously agree a wide-ranging “de-facto moratorium” on ocean fertilization activities. This first-ever global decision on a geo- engineering technology should spell the end of commercial plans to sequester carbon dioxide by dumping nutrients into the open ocean. Nonetheless, one ocean fertilization company, Climos Inc. of San Francisco, appears to be moving full steam ahead in defiance of international consensus. African countries, especially Ghana, led the negotiations towards the moratorium, supported strongly by European, South East Asian and some Latin American nations. One party, Ecuador, requested that an additional statement be added to the decision: “We came here to get a straightforward moratorium without exceptions, because of the great danger that this kind of experiment put on unique ecosystems such as the Galapagos Islands. We accepted this text, in the spirit of collaboration with the other parties.” The United States, the only country left openly supporting ocean fertilization, is not a signatory to the Convention. While the moratorium should spell the end of commercial plans for ocean fertilization at least one US company, Climos Inc. of San Francisco seems to be powering full steam ahead to defy the international convention. Last week, knowing that a moratorium was under discussion, Climos CEO Dan Whaley announced that his firm was approaching investors for an injection of up to 12 million US dollars to finance a plan to fertilize 100 to 200 kilometers of the ocean.(2) Climos had at least one lobbyist in Bonn attempting to derail negotiations. ETC warns that this is not the last we have seen of the “geo-engineering” dream of a large-scale techno-fix for climate change. http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=694 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
