Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Monday, August 11, 2008
Just like Yogi Berra Said, “It’s like deja-vu, all over again”.
California based Planktos has postponed its ocean “iron-fertilization” plans indefinitely. Planktos failed to find sufficient funding for its efforts.
Batter up.
Climos. Climos has raised $3.5 million in Marchto conduct the same “ocean iron fertilization” plan. Climos, like Planktos was founded in California.
Dan Whaley, a self-taught computer programmer and Richard Whilden,a wildly successful money raiser. Whilden is also very familiar with the banking industry. You’ll want to have a look at his experience in that industry.
The Climos website has listed as a co-founder and Chief Science Officer Dr. Margaret Leinen. In addition to being Chief Science Officer, Dr. Leinen is also Dan whaley’s mother.
Studies show that the North Atlantic Ocean is only absorbing half of the CO2 it once did and that the Southern Oceans have stopped absorbing it at all, and are now in fact releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere. Emissions of carbon dioxide from the oceans have increased by 40% since 1981.
Enter the catcher.
Emissions trading is being hyped as a $30 billion market already that could grow to $1 trillion within the next 10 years. Where oh where would there be a vault large enough to hold 1 trillion dollars worth of emissions? Maybe the ocean? Maybe that why Dan Whaley, came up with a business plan that involved selling ‘carbon offsets’.
Whaley’s light bulb moment came after talking to his oceanographer mother about ocean iron fertilization. She had known John Martin, who is apparently the father of the whole ocean iron fertilization concept,known as the “iron hypothesis”. Martin said in 1991 “Give me half a tankerload of iron, and I’ll give you an Ice Age. He died in 1993. shortly after his death his theory was proven to be correct by Moss Landing Marine Laboratories after they spread an iron solution into the ocean near the Galapagos Islands and algae bloomed.
The Umpire calls, “stee rike”.
Never mind that algae blooms are also responsible for ‘dead zones’ in the oceans. The proliferation of plankton is what depletes oxygen in the waters creating dead zones in which some fish can flee, but many slow moving creatures are less able to escape. Oxygen levels in Dead Zones are too low to support marine life.
Rob Fujita, Environmental Defense Fund marine ecologist thinks Dead Zones are already hard enough to control. “It’s not a great time to increase the risk to oceans ecosystems”, says Fujita.
Russ George, of the shut down Planktos said, “This isn’t rocket science, it’s ocean farming.” George believed there wasn’t any reason a profit couldn’t be made while still helping the environment.
Foul ball.
There is a line between fertilization and pollution. Nether side of the line looks to be territory where the iron “ball” should be played as fair.
Whaley says, “Basically, the business model hinges on the price of carbon and the efficacy of sequestration.”
Isn’t all of this really a means to generate wealth for a wealth generating machine? A New York Times article called carbon trading one of the fastest-growing ’specialties in financial services’. Have we learned nothing from the past ‘financial services’ hatched from thin air?
CCX, the Chicago Climate Exchange, ECO.L EcoSecurities or how about the EU ETS. The government backed trading program in Europe called European Emission Trading Scheme. I don’t happen to like anything with Scheme in its official title and there are plenty.
Game called on account of rain.
Some estimates have fertilizing the entire Southern Ocean with iron for 100 years would only reduce atmospheric CO2 levels by 20-30%. This providing the organism decay isn’t released back into at shallow or intermediate depths creating an unnatural decomposing leading to more devastating Dead Zones
Patient: It hurts when I poke my eye.
Doctor: Stop poking your eye.
Labels: Carbon-credit, Climos, Frankenplankton, Galapagos, Iron fertilization, Ocean, Planktos, Sequestration, carbon dioxide, carbon-trading market, ocean dead zone
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Planktos out, Climos at bat. Frankenplankton lives.
