Fertilizing the oceans with iron could help remove a gigaton of carbon dioxide per year
Fertilizing the oceans with iron could help remove a gigaton of carbon dioxide per year
Phytoplankton absorbs carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, and there's a relatively easy way to boost the world's populations.
> Buesseler doesn't believe adding iron to the world's oceans on a mass scale to increase phytoplankton levels would cause any harm to global ecosystems. However, he does stress that more research is needed to investigate the effects.
Yes, please!?
doesn’t believe
A far cry from "knows".
At this point doing something that you're unsure whether it will make things better or worse is literally a better option than just nothing. I mean really what's the worst thing that happens? The equivalent of an oil spill? Like that's ever stopped us from doing things for profit? Why should we hold ourselves to these "better be entirely certain" standards when we never held ourselves to that standard on the way here?
This is a legitimate train of thought. "This might hurt things but I'm not sure how" simply isn't good enough. Give me a reason to be afraid to use this. Cause we're not afraid of using oil yet. Fuck it let's put a bunch of iron in the oceans. Really can't hurt things any worse than we have, can it?
There are no easy quick fixes and i'd be wary of experimenting on such a massive scale. It's like the other method, blocking sunlight to the planet, sounds like a great idea until everything reliant on photosynthesis starts dying off.
Most of the legitimate "block sunlight" proposals involve cloud seeding or spreading long-lasting particulates high in the upper atmosphere. The goal of these projects is to reflect 1-2% of sunlight, which would significantly cool the climate, but plants would hardly notice. In fact, organisms like reef systems would greatly appreciate it, as they're dying off at an extraordinary rate.
I put up a 30% sunshade over my tomatoes and they've never looked happier... I'm assuming this operates under the same function?
The forest are also dying from being too hot and dry. Any respite from the insane heat of summer would be well received. It's so much harder than it was 20 years ago!
What if we just like... just do it over the poles?
I'm an idiot.
It's too late for that. If we don't do something drastic, we're not going to continue existing much longer.
How is it that people are always coming up with zany untested solutions like "dump a fuckton of iron in the sea and see what happens" instead of doing the one thing we actually know how to do -- move to clean energy??? It's not like we don't have the solution. We just have to actually implement it.
If we stop all carbon production tomorrow, the earth will still continue heating up and be heated for the next 1000+ years.
We must take steps to geoengineer or not only will we be uncomfortable, but we'll lose significant areas to desertification, lose many species to extinction, and lose many people to water and food shortages.
Right? Like, “Hey! I’ve been shot in the guts, and I’m bleeding out. Ohhhh this hurts! …I know! I’ll shoot myself in the throat so it’s not as painful!”
The logic of our society blows my mind in its utter stupidity.
Maybe human civilization is only meant to exist until fossil fuels are depleted?
According to who or what? Humans existed prior to discovering oil. In fact I am sure that if we never discovered it humans would still be alive AND the environment for which we depend on wouldn’t be absolutely fucked. Life would certainly be different but at least sustainable for a little while longer then this current shit show.
Fossil fuels gave us the technology to get where we are today. We have overcome natural limits for centuries. I believe we can continue to do that.
Cody's Lab did a proof of concept on this, proposing to crash meteroites in the ocean as iron sources. Meteorite as fertilizer?
I have a better idea.
We throw our politicians and people with power in the sea.
I mean, that would be a lot of iron....
More like lead