I've prescribed a hundred times how to restore a dilapidated piece of rangeland. The Haida people have an ocean pasture that their life and culture depend on. The salmon on that pasture, in spite of every effort, have disappeared. This is a village of people who can no longer get enough food. It's because their pasture has no carrying capacity for animals to grow and thrive on. We are trying to replenish and restore the pasture and we are portrayed as villains.

Any concerns about possible side effects like dead zones?
Can any scientist who claims to be credible say such a thing in the face of the long, published history of plankton blooms in the open ocean? There was a massive volcanic bloom from the 2008 [Mount] Kasatoshi eruption. Ours was less than 1 percent of the size. Did it [the Kasatoshi eruption] result in oxygen dead zones?

But plankton blooms do cause dead zones.
Not in any pelagic environment, in constrained coastal regions. Is there a single solitary published report based on experimental observations other than the hypothetical? We've looked. We've not found it.

Any concerns about the legality of this effort?
This is Canada so it's British law, not American law. In British law, if you want to do something and you're not sure whether it's legal or not, you commission officers of the court to do an analysis and produce an official document, a legal opinion as to whether it breaks the law or not. This was done. The opinion was that with comparative studies and international laws we were absolutely in the clear. The claim that this is illegal is the design of the people who want to burn the books. This is the life of the village that they're trying to kill.

Any plans for more ocean fertilizing?
Could you imagine that it would be good science to do something only once? Just put one drop of test chemical in a test tube? A reasonable, intelligent, earnest and honest scientist would not plan to do it only once. That's not good science.

We have to see what the data says. We just don't know what it says. In our hopes and dreams, in the village's hopes and dreams, this works. And what if it does work? What if this is a means by which the ocean pastures can be stewarded and brought back to health? The fish will come back but all the other sea life as well. What if that's the outcome?

Would you call this geoengineering?
Geoengineering is an entirely derogatory spin term. If they can pin that to you, you've lost already. I once gave a TED talk in New York City along with Wally Broecker, the father of climate modeling and David Keith who coined the term geoengineering. In the green room before the talk we got in a heated argument because I said geoengineering is a nasty name.

I don't think we should build artificial forests out of concrete with concentrated lye solutions dribbling over the leaf area to absorb CO2. I think we should grow real trees.

The problem with [CO2's effect on] the ocean is not merely ocean acidification. The main problem is high CO2 promoting plant growth. This planet is a planet of grass, not trees. Dust comes from all kinds of dry areas. The vast majority of dust-producing regions are drylands. Those are places where grass grows but its green in spring and brown in summer. When it's green and growing well, it's good ground cover and then it shrivels up and becomes poor ground cover.

9 Comments

1. 1. raymclennan 06:51 PM 10/24/12

   This man has committed ecologic terrorism with huge ramifications and he should be charged and prosecuted for ocean dumping.
   We have time and time again found out what happened when we try and improve on nature, it goes horribly wrong!

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2. 2. fchow8888 07:37 PM 10/24/12

   Sometimes science progresses by taking risks. Jenner with the smallpox vaccine. The Manhattan Project (with some scientists betting the detonation would be hot enough to ignite the atmosphere and kill everything on the planet). You cannot do everything by simulation on a PC. There is no substitute for asking nature herself a question, and yes, sometimes that's a risky thing.

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3. 3. JimLem 10:36 PM 10/24/12

   I'm glad he is pushing forward with experiments. A few angry people should not block research into science that we might need in the future.
   
   And, I'm pretty shocked at the one-sided coverage up until now. If you read other articles in the past week, none of them had any kind of balance and obviously didn't even try to present his side of the story.
   
   That supports his claim that the press has twisted the issue.
   

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4. 4. em_allways_right 02:21 AM 10/25/12

   I am more concerned w. all the other things that people are dumping into the ocean - not some rust dust.

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5. 5. ironjustice 10:25 AM 10/25/12

   Compared to all the drums of toxic waste dumped into the ocean over the years , this project is a drop in the bucket. 'Disposal' companies were paid to dispose of the waste and they've been simply dumping it into the ocean for decades.

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6. 6. Daniel35 04:12 PM 10/27/12

   Since apparently we can't stop burning carbon fuels, at least in time to prevent severe warming, it seems like Iron fertilization is the best option. Sure, plankton gets eaten and some CO2 is emitted, but until we get better data, I think more ocean life of any kind means more carbon-containing waste and corpses go to the ocean floor. Opposing this seems like supporting the human-created epocalypse.

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7. 7. LacklandWilliamsMeadeCNCI 02:30 PM 10/28/12

   100 tonnes of Iron (III) Sulfate turns to be one helluva tectonic laxative!! 7.7 Magnitude Earthquake registered at on Queen Charlotte Fault on October 27, 2012. Sure there was an algal bloom in August, 2012 after the Iron Sulfate dumping from a fishing boat in July, 2012, but it turns out this Iron Sulfate stuff goes right to the fault cracks in the plates and is slippery like graphite in a rusty car door lock!! I think we've got Earth Grease!!
   Patent it!!

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8. 8. raymclennan 02:47 PM 10/28/12

   We as humans have arrogance to think we know how to make nature better and fix everything we have broken! Scientists paid by capitalists spend so much trying to see if the can, and no time thinking about whether they should!

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9. 9. StateOfTheArtist 11:10 PM 1/20/13

   Russ George is an enviromental hero and everyone should be kissing his butt. If PLANKTOS had been allowed to roll out large scale ocean fert 7 years ago when they were trying rather than being villanised as they were, we wouldn't be in quite as deep schtuck as we are today!
   NOW we are within 2 years of complete loss of artic summer sea ice, this lost reflectivity doubling global warming from what greenhouse gases alone are doing.
   NOW we have to furiously "geoengineer" with sulphate aerosols in the Arctic stratosphere and other SERIOUS geoengineering techniques WITHIN THE NEXT 5 YEARS if we wish to avoid the rapidly escalating release of several thousand gigatons of methane locked in and under the siberian continental shelf submarine permafrost which is melting furiously NOW. THAT scenario has global average temperatures up by some 10 deg c and the planet sterile of all higher life forms by 2050.
   Doubt any of this?
   -Check out the Arctic Methane Emergency Group (AMEG), and the Arctic News blogsite.
   
   We need ocean fert. ocean biomass, animal or vegetable, dead on the sea floor or swimming...
   -is carbon not in the atmosphere or acidifying the oceans!

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