The ETC Group and the International Center for Technology Assessment have requested that the US EPA and the International Maritime Organization urgently investigate the activities of Planktos, a company that has said it will soon dump 100 tons of iron particles into the ocean near the Galapagos Islands as part of a controversial geoengineering scheme to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to offset global warming. From the ETC/ICTA press release:
Planktos Inc., a for-profit geoengineering company with offices in the U.S. and Canada, announced that it will dump 100 tons of iron particles in the Pacific Ocean west of the Galapagos islands – an act that critics believe may violate national and international ocean protection laws, and potentially cause serious damage to the ocean ecosystem.
Planktos is in the business of selling “carbon credits” to individuals who want to “offset” their personal climate change impact. The company claims that iron particles dumped in the ocean will stimulate growth of phytoplankton and draw carbon dioxide (a climate changing gas) out of the atmosphere, a scheme that will allow the company to make money from carbon trading.
Link: Dumping on Gaia.
I had heard of this idea and another like it -- that we should pump sulfates into the atmosphere to reflect more of the sun's rays away from the earth -- but who knew that companies could go ahead with risky schemes like this without any sort of oversight?
The ETC press release includes links to other resources, including a recent article in Nature that says the iron/plankton experiment won't work.
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