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Huge Geoengineering Project Violates UN Rules
Baldrson writes "The Guardian reports that a massive geoengineering project has been detected off the west coast of Canada that violates UN regulations. An Amerindian tribe in the Pacific NW that depends on salmon teamed with an entrepreneur and a group of scientists to have 100 tons of iron sulphate spread across a huge area of the ocean in order to spur plankton growth. 'Satellite images appear to confirm the claim ... that the iron has spawned an artificial plankton bloom as large as 10,000 square kilometers. The intention is for the plankton to absorb carbon dioxide and then sink to the ocean bed – a geoengineering technique known as ocean fertilization that he hopes will net lucrative carbon credits.' The entrepreneur, Russ George, hopes to cash in on the carbon credits and the Amerindian tribe on an increased salmon harvest. The situation has sparked outcry from environmentalists and civil society groups. Oceanographer John Cullen said, 'It is difficult if not impossible to detect and describe important effects that we know might occur months or years later. 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.'"
No shit, talk about maladjusted... I read that to say Armenian and I was like WTF are those assholes doing in Canuckistan?
Native Americans are so much more in tune with nature......
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
So what happens if this little adventure is actually successful. Obviously there will be some side effects, but what if none of them are negative and the fish flourish and the evil carbon is inprisioned? Will they still seek to crucify this guy? Further, what "teeth" does an international "resolution" have to take legal action against him? he didn't break any actual laws.
It seems like he is swimming in a big grey sea and knows it. And is willing as an entrepreneur to take the risks associated with that swim. Makes sense to me.
That's quite a leap from next to no evidence you are making.
Insofar as realistic-scale research on any geoengineering processes are never going to be allowed, maybe this kinds of illegal stuff is the only way to find out what works and what won't. As the writeup correctly said, we just don't know what kind of effect this will have on oceanic oxygen levels. And for another thing, we don't really know what effect this will have on the salmon either. One thing that I'm happy about: Now we're at least about to find out! Since somebody did this, I hope that a flock of oceanologists flock to the site and measure the shit out of it. Yeah, it's not an experiment we wanted or approve of, but we might as well make a bit of lemonade out of these lemons!
So spewing billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere is NOT against UN regulations? That, it seems to me, is the REAL geoengineering experiment. At least the fertilization team is going to learn something that might be useful.
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
And North Americans are breathing Chinese smog.
I want to know who gpt paid off to import this foreign made smog when we have plenty of good old American Made Smog right here in Los Angeles!!!
I think we need a Congressional investigation! With blackjack! And hookers!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
is the sound of people wanting to know what the outcome is, to know that we are not doing more harm than good, before we do something like this. Don't f*ck the world by accident or by ignorance. Preferably don't f*ck it at all. I do not mind experimenting and learning, but something on this scale that has such huge potential ramifications, all on someone's belief rather than proven science, backed with long term studies - Nahh, that I do not like. Too much of it already in the world we live in. Let's learn from humanity's mistakes, please!
oxygen production. plankton are the foundation of the ocean ecosystem. i'm a lefty, but this seems like a win win. change will happen. but no more than when we make hydroelectric dams that drastically change the water temperature so all of the indigenous fish die and have to be replaced with colder water species. and these types of changes are justified every day. I really don't see a problem with this. let's do a study to see what happens when we offer fish more food. you get more fish.
Mark Anthony Collins
Every year we take 100 million tons of biomass from the oceans (mostly as pelagic fish, 70m tons). And each year, we dump 6 million tons of garbage in the oceans, 2 million tons of waste oil, and discharge about 450 cubic kilometres of waste water into rivers (about 450 billion tons, so even ppb chemicals release more than 100 tons).
But lets worry about 100 tons of iron sulphate dust.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
No, you goddamn moron - the buzzkills are the people who think that engineering changes on a global scale without a fucking clue of the long-term ramifications is a huge, terrible and deadly idea. Heck, even simple projects like damming a river is creating all kinds of unforeseen problems if the damming is large enough: earthquakes, for one, weren't on the list when people drew up drawbacks for those.
Let me guess - you are the fucking idiot who thinks that applying changes directly to production is a brilliant way to speed up the roll-out of new features, don't you?
Oh, and since you're probably one of those people who think that property rights are everything, and the defense of your own way of life trumps everything: mind if I stop by and shoot you in the face because you support fucking up my life through planetary engineering? No? O course not - those solution are only valid if YOUR life is inconvenienced.
Go die in a fire.
You know, your point itself is rather sound. I completely agree that people need to try and figure out what the effects of such projects will be BEFORE they start them. But the fact that you decided to fly off the handle into a profanity-laden tirade wipes out a good chuck of whatever credibility you may have had. Initiating personal attacks on the poster because you disagree with them eliminates the rest. In so doing, you have just demonstrated why so many people are turned off by environmentalists. The subsection that thinks and acts like yourself, i.e. stomping your feet, screaming, swearing, and berating others who don't share your opinion - THAT is how most people see the "green" movement, because people like you are the ones most often heard. When you act like a child in supporting a cause, then human nature sees that the entire thing is seen as petulant, childish, and immature.
Disagree, by all means. That's your right, and I welcome you to exercise it. But in disagreeing, try to use facts, studies, and evidence to support your position instead of further cementing the other side's view of environmentalists. Otherwise, you're not doing yourself or the environment any favors. And before you say anything about the original poster's attitude, realize that an ill informed and snarky comment doesn't always warrant one in return, and certainly not escalated to the level you just reached. Two wrongs, etc. etc.
But I don't expect this to sink in. I'll probably get a profanity-filled wish for my own death before the end of the evening. I've come to expect it when arguing with your type. Want to really shut me up on that? Prove me wrong...
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
A 1995 Census Bureau survey asked indigenous Americans and found that 49% preferred the term "Indian", 37% "Native American", and 3.6% "some other name." About 5 percent expressed no preference.
Moreover, a large number of Indians actually strongly object to the term Native American for political reasons. In his 1998 essay "I Am An American Indian, Not a Native American!", Russell Means, a Lakota activist and a founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM), stated unequivocally, "I abhor the term 'Native American...At an international conference of Indians from the Americas held in Geneva, Switzerland, at the United Nations in 1977 we unanimously decided we would go under the term American Indian. We were enslaved as American Indians, we were colonized as American Indians, and we will gain our freedom as American Indians and then we can call ourselves anything we damn please."