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Subscribe to RSSA 3,800-square-mile algae bloom in the Pacific Ocean off Canada's British Columbia has been traced to a California businessman who promised a local tribe he could help their salmon runs by fertilizing the ocean with iron.
The Guardian of London reported that Russ George acknowledged that in July his company, the Haida Salmon Restoration Corp., had dropped around 100 tons of ore with traces of iron, calling it the "most substantial ocean restoration project in history."
"We've gathered data targeting all the possible fears that have been raised" about ocean fertilization, George reportedly added. "And the news is good news, all around, for the planet."
Planktos, a separate company started by George, has wanted to experiment with ocean fertilization as a way to soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But Planktos has been stymied in bids to get government approval for the testing, which, if successful, could position the company to cash in on carbon trading credits aimed at reducing global warming.
Canada's environment ministry said it was investigating the experiment but would not elaborate.
Fertilization might be a way to soak up carbon dioxide, but it's also hotly debated among scientists.
"Some possible effects, such as deep-water oxygen depletion and alteration of distant food webs, should rule out ocean manipulation," John Cullen, an oceanographer at Dalhousie University, told The Guardian. "History is full of examples of ecological manipulations that backfired."
"It scares me," added Maite Maldonado, a University of British Columbia researcher who specializes in the impact of trace minerals on ocean life.
"If you have a massive bloom or growth of this microscopic algae, you might not have enough oxygen in the water column at certain depths," Maldonado told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
The project is 100 times larger than any previous experiment in iron fertilization, she added.
Moreover, the project might have violated two international resolutions, Kristina Gjerde, an adviser to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, told the Guardian.
"The placement of iron particles into the ocean, whether for carbon sequestration or fish replenishment, should not take place, unless it is assessed and found to be legitimate scientific research without commercial motivation," she said. "This does not appear to even have had the guise of legitimate scientific research."
The Haida nation reportedly put up more than $1 million for the test under the premise that an algae bloom would provide more food for salmon. The test itself was done some 200 miles west of the Haida Gwaii islands.
"The village people voted to support what they were told was a 'salmon enhancement project'," said the tribe's president, who goes by a single name Guujaaw.
Guujaaw said the tribe "would not have agreed if they had been told of any potential negative effects or that it was in breach of an international convention."
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This is exactly the kind of geoengineering that should scare everyone.
We have no idea how iron-saturated waters (or sulfates in the upper atmosphere) will affect the planet. Geoengineering is not the way to 'fix' climate change. It's an experiment conducted on the only home we have - and fraught with Unintended Consequences.
These guys were just trying to cash in on carbon credits. Wasnt that the intention of the brilliant Al Gore to begin with? To motivate private industry in such ways? Indeed...unintended consequences of liberal policy I suppose.
You neanderthals like to blame everything in the world that you think is wrong on the mysterious "liberals" Take that word out of the dictionary and you people could not even carry on a conversation. Answer to your question is no.
I carry on a conversation quite well Giantego.
Not everything. I dont blame liberals for the wars in the ME for instance. I dont blame O'bama for the Ambassador's death in Libya. I just blame him for trying to cover up what really happened. See, I am quite reasonable. One thing I do agree with you on...Liberals are mysterious
Carbon credits are doing more damage than good . That whole idea should be scrapped.
I don't care who's idea it was . It sucks.
Way worse the iron in the ocean.
Even if we get away from all of the chemicals in the future the damage is done.
WHY did these chemicals get put in our system anyway. Biological planetary engineering by the top wealth OWNERS on the planet.
The one percent will win because the poisoned the rest of us.
They told the smart boys 'Here is what we want.Make it hard for the masses to reproduce, think clearly and while we are at it make them easier to control and fat."
For money the science geeks do what they are told and presto poisoned population that can never recover, changes are not reversible.
The first scientists to experiment with these chemicals were using them to 'control' behavior in prison populations.
The people in control knew all along what they were doing.
If we want to make the sea produce more food for people we have to experiment with different approaches, and not all of them are going to work.
Right - we are already participating in the greatest science experiment ever - also known as Global Climate Change!
The unrestricted use of already sequestered carbon and the reintroduction of the resulting carbon compounds (CO2, Methane, and other greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere is going to have long ranging consequences that may not be felt for generations to come. The "REAL" Scientists seem to be in agreement that those consequences will be on the bad side. The "FAKE" scientists (those with no background in environmental sciences) all "know" that there are NO bad results to this experiment. Who will ultimately be right - time will tell, but by then it will be too late!
Geoengineering, while it sounds great in planning, is fraught with its own consequences, as we go from counteracting rising CO2 levels to dealing with a red tide algae bloom, to a new ocean dead zone to whatever the next crisis results. As for cooling the planet with sulfates injected into the air, can we say ACID RAIN. Lakes in Canada were seriously damaged due to the unrestricted release of suffer compounds from coal-fired power plants in the U.S.
Lets face it human beings only live for generally less than a 100 years and don't realize the long term results of our actions on the planet (politicians have an even shorter attention span - the next election), our collective actions have greater consequences over much longer time scales (many hundreds to thousands of years). Our current actions won't be felt until many generations of our kids kids later.
So after saying all of that, is anyone going to measure O2 levels in that portion of the ocean? Now that this has been done, shouldn't we at least study what happens? Maybe Russ George is right, or more likely wrong. But it is currently all supposition and theory. Why not use the learning opportunity?
OK, now how do we fund this study? If you say make George or the Haida people pay for it that's fine but expect it to be delayed for years in the courts.
i am 36 i say give me oil and let me pollute till i die i will plant a tree to make myself c02 neutral
dogin
You are why the world is so screwed up....you are an a-hole.
lol, you think one tree planted after you die, will make you CO2 neutral. Not even remotely close. What I wouldn't give to live in your convoluted world.
For every 800 lbs of carbon we emit we should be planting a forest. Sadly we are tearing them down at an even faster rate. Even the Amazon is in the process of being slowly clear cut and that bodes ill for everyone.
Russ George must be very arrogant. Approval for testing one project is denied, so he just goes ahead and does another without permission. I hope at least the Haida nation tribes can recover the million they put up. It was not his right to scam them or go against international rules. Whether it was 100 x 38 miles or 10 x 380, that is huge.
...and all so he could do carbon credit shenanigans if he could "prove" his idea.
3800 square miles! nice a hole. im sure nothing but good will come from this.people really suck. take a gamble like that.
Huge algae bloom off Canada triggered by company's 'fertilization' experiment.
The area of this test was one third the size of Lake Erie, a lake that has had many such test albeit, anything well planned, the impact and recovery is lengthy and unending ordeal.
I have gathered several rules about doing similar tests: Don’t dump garbage on the Sun, it reacts to metals and making it hotter or cooler could hazardous to your health, mine too. Don't pollute the atmosphere, or upset the Oxygen supply, it make is hard to breath, and has a tendency to aid combustion. Don't mess with the Ocean we need it working, healthy for fish and all the things we haven't bothered to learn about.
Don't mess with Mother Nature if you don't happen to have a spare Earth nearby, and I recommend a good paid up insurance policy for personal liability and damages.
These three rules all relate to algae, the much politically maligned organism that is the Earth's sole choice for producing masses about of Oxygen in the air. We should be awe of algae as it carries the representative photosynthesis process up the plant kingdom hierarchy to those green shady things called trees. And your last meal and your next meal with are produced by photosynthesis even if the animal got to it first.
The open ocean is relatively free of nutrient concentrations that are removed naturally, and thus sensitive to man's industrial grade pollution, and habitual neglect.
While algae cannot speak for itself, it should be a deniers nightmare, in that algae is largely responsible for having produced the bulk of the world oil supply, over that past 250 million years. That’s right; the Ocean got polluted by volcanism and produces huge amount of algae in the form of the modern hydro carbon. Not an easy trick, given that the continents needed to be configured just so. The rest is geology or petrology.
Except for the fact while vast accumulations of algae live they produce oxygen, well good enough and even very important for plant biota. But when the algae die they sunk into the Ocean where in decomposing the remove all the oxygen from the water. Call it anoxic of you want, but the Ocean is dead, and everything swimming that needs oxygen in is dead. The Gulf coast and the Baltic Sea are in goodly portion dead. This condition was vital to those ancient oil deposits that the world has slavishly dedicated every living human being to its exploitation and ravenous consumption.
Fortunate for the Planet a total Ocean wide anoxic event only last a half a million years, while the life on land strangles from the absence of Oxygen.
The pollution he caused is bad enough but the Envirment Ministry cannot say anything about it. They have been allowing the timber companies and mills pollute the water with chemicals and wood debris for decades. But, since they pay so much in taxes, the gov't turns away and ignores it.
How many fish have died because of this? I don't know. How many boats have been damaged by floating logs left behind by the timber and mill industry? 10's of thousands. It is impossible to travel from Vancouver Island to the mainland without seeing dozens and dozens of the logs and smaller log parts floating. It is imposible to take a simple boat ride without having to worry about the "deadheads" or logs destroying your boat and possibly causing death by drowning. Look on any beach there they are, hundreds of logs on shore. Who cleans the mess? No one. The gov't classifies these fresh cut logs as "natural driftwood". Yea, "natural" with chain cut patterns all over them, spray painted marking indicating size. None of this "driftwood" is sundried and weathered as only real driftwood is..
So, back to the guy and his iron: he has done no different than the timber company or the mills. Any good attorney could bring "selective prosecution" to light in this case.
I'm not saying what he did was right. I am merely pointing out that if the gov't prosecutes this, they are morally bound to bring charges against the bigger culprits, too. { But then, the gov't has no morals, do they?}
The person behind this debacle needs to thrown into jail immediately!
Under whos authority? Who is the police force for this part of the ocean? Apparently it is in international waters.
Hey, I have some magic beans to trade for your cow...........any takers?
Lots of time in jail to think up his next money scheme! Is this something that can be reversed? There really wasn't very much information on what exactly he did or what is going to happen now?
Iron ore ? I wonder if a big magnet could pick it up ??? Make him remove it !!!
and come spring a whole bunch of people will be putting iron on their lawns to make them green up and then they will put a bunch of pesticide on the lawn to kill the bugs and then about june they will put a bunch more fertilizer on their lawns and did I mention the flower beds? I wonder how many square miles of this stuff we as a people do each year. Just a thought to ponder any better ideas out there?
oh well, the damae is done. we might as well study it to see if it works.
This a-hole was a scammer who got rid of a waste product and then charged stupid people to dump it. He knows how to make money, that's for sure!
Private companies doing what the heck they want with no regulation. This is why the government has to regulate people are only interested in themselves, too bad we need to legislate for others who will be effected once private companies take thier money and run. Whats new.....think meat indutry 1920's duh
Don't all of you people get it?
Polluting is okay if you are "green". It is okay for Al Gore to fly because he is going around telling people they have to stop flying to save the world. People can drink bottled water at climate conferences because they are telling people of the problems with using oil and plastic disposal.
This guy throwing stuff into the ocean is okay because he was trying to make things better.
Carbon credits program needs to be eliminated.
It has hurt more than it helps and it is sucking away American dollars.
Giving them to the bad guys.
As a tree hugger, I am completely offended by the carbon footprint of the fundraising and campaigning.
Also throw in the mountains of unwanted junkmail, made with the worst paper and colored ink.
It disgusts me.
What is next?
iim pretty sure this killed some fish
This charlatan should be put away before he causes real ecological damage. As an environmental reporter in Alaska, I hold great respect for the Haida, Tsimsian and Tlingit peoples of the coastal rain forests of B.C. and Southeast Alaska. However, this Haida group have allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by this quack's confidence game.
The B.C. and Canadian government should investigate Russ George for violations of international treaties and the fisheries 200-mile limit. Hopefully the Haida Nation will learn something from this without threat of damage to their sacred salmon resource. However, they also share blame for their gullibility and failure to request scientific and legal advice.