
Fertilizing the Ocean with Iron (2007) - astrobase_go
https://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/fertilizing-the-ocean-with-iron/
======
GOONIMMUNE
It seems more and more likely to me that the general approach to climate
change is going to simply be adaptation. We'll have to figure out ways to live
and grow food in a hotter world that has more dramatic weather events. I think
this will be expensive and could tragically lead to the deaths of many people
who cannot afford to live in this new world.

If a large country with many poor people are faced with this situation, maybe
it's likely that they might try one of these geoengineering efforts as a last
resort? The environmental effects are unpredictable, but if it could save a
lot of lives...

~~~
Ma8ee
Yes, we will have to adapt. That doesn’t change the fact we also must try to
slow and minimise it as much as is possible. Adapting to two degrees is
probably an order of magnitude easier than adapting to four or five degrees.

We rich westerners will most likely only be inconvenienced. We have our AC and
we can afford more expensive food. If you live close to the coast or a river
you might need to move.

The greatest problem we will have to face is probably the huge waves of
refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. Not only from
starvation, but from conflicts about e.g., water.

~~~
ncmncm
The problem we face is the rise of Fascism in response to those waves, and the
bad government and, most likely, war, always instigated by Fascists.

It is already starting.

~~~
nix23
>always instigated by Fascists

Not really, just look at the US..oil/money

~~~
ncmncm
You seem to be confused. A counterexample would be a Fascist government that
did not instigate a war, given ample time.

~~~
nix23
>given ample time.

That's the problem....any government instigate in a ware given enough time, i
think your problem is that you have no clue what fascist means.

~~~
ncmncm
You are still confused.

Numerous governments have never instigated wars despite ample opportunities.

Fascists do not need your defense.

------
greenonions
There are so many lower hanging fruit for reducing emissions of and
sequestering existing carbon.

If you simply restored the majority of the US great plains back to a bison
centered ecosystem instead of cattle, you'd produce a similar resource (bison
meat) in large quantity while reducing emissions, and the tall grass would
sequester an enormous amount of carbon.

~~~
24gttghh
I was about to say most of the plains are used for growing corn and not
grazing land but I was wrong, partly. Its mostly cropland in the
Northern/Central plains, but mostly grazing/pasture land otherwise.

[https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/major-land-
uses/maps-...](https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/major-land-uses/maps-
and-state-rankings-of-major-land-uses.aspx)

~~~
mdorazio
Worth noting also is that major crops grown there, like corn and soybeans, are
primarily used as animal feed [1][2]. A decent chunk of corn is also used for
ethanol additives to gasoline. The best thing we can do for the environment by
far is reduce consumption of beef and dairy products.

[1] [https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/corn-and-other-
feedgra...](https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/corn-and-other-
feedgrains/feedgrains-sector-at-a-glance/)

[2]
[https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexisten...](https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexistence-
soybeans-factsheet.pdf)

~~~
staplers

      The best thing we can do for the environment by far is reduce consumption of beef and dairy products.
    

This is very false.

Source: [https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-
emis...](https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions)

~~~
24gttghh
Maybe not the best overall, but definitely the cheapest and easiest thing a
consumer can do, right now, today, is eat less red meat.

~~~
staplers
There are already subsidies which incentivize the production of cattle. Just
like with corn, if demand goes down, they'll just find a way to use cattle for
something else (like turning it into feed or some energy source). The average
citizen has very say in macro-economic supply chains.

~~~
24gttghh
I highly doubt ranchers would turn to grinding up beef herds just to make more
feed. They would just grow more forage/feed crops. But they really wouldn't
since it's the beef that needs the absurd volume of feed, so ideally they
would just go out of business.

------
aaron695
This has been done, I think most people know this.

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/oct/15/pacific-...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/oct/15/pacific-
iron-fertilisation-geoengineering)

You can track down the 8 years of followup articles and research papers.

There is no evidence it didn't work. There's evidence it did.

The trick is, tie it to fishing and it might make a difference. Or it might
just take pressure off fisheries.

You have billions yet to eat more meat, so hurry up with your lab grown meat
or start doing things like this, that also should get the same subsidies as
things like solar power.

------
omginternets
Every time I read something like this, my hubris alarm goes off. We couldn't
even get trans-fats right, so I don't see how we're going to cover all the
contingencies for something like this.

~~~
frazbin
'Terraforming' earth has never been easy but it has long been necessary to
feed humans. Bulk addition of soluble/leachable nutrients (naturally depleted
by rainfall, fractionation by gravity, and chemical transformation) is the
primary novel intervention in modern agriculture. We've learned that
biological systems can be made to cycle much faster by turning the crank in
this way. The rewards are great-- used in land, 7 billion fed. Use of similar
intervention in the ocean suggests proportionally larger rewards.

Further, we've already destabilized the global system by injecting carbon. It
is now our responsibility to find a way to stabilize it again.

~~~
omginternets
Yes, this is all true, and yet it’s the unknowns that will get us. There was a
time where burning coal seemed like a good idea.

~~~
frazbin
Whether the unknowns will get us is.. unknown. We are going to learn about
whole-planet ecology in the next century whether we intervene or not.
Pretending that we know less than we really do is kind of a trademark
regressive-right tactic, so you'll forgive me when I say it's quite
disengenuous and harmful to compare coal combustion to iron fertilization.

The negative externalities of coal combustion have been known in broad strokes
at both the macro and micro levels for centuries. The benefits of
fertilization have been known for much longer.

~~~
ncmncm
More likely we will fall to what we thought we knew that was not, in fact,
true.

It happened in Iraq, to the tune of $5T.

------
LatteLazy
Our species has repeatedly been really clear: we're not going to do anything
about climate change. Stop pretending lack of interest is lack of options.

~~~
X6S1x6Okd1st
Eurpoe + common wealth + USA + Canada has seen declining CO2 per capita since
~2002, many of them earlier than that.

[https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co2?tab=chart&xScale=li...](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co2?tab=chart&xScale=linear&yScale=linear&stackMode=absolute&endpointsOnly=0&year=latest&time=earliest..2016&country=Europe~United%20States~Australia~New%20Zealand~Canada&region=World&Gas%20=CO%E2%82%82&Accounting%20=Production-
based&Fuel%20=Total&Count%20=Per%20capita&Relative%20to%20world%20total%20=)

Just because it's not enough and it's been slow doesn't mean it's nothing.

~~~
LatteLazy
A few counter points:

* rate of World co2 emissions continue to rise.

* we don't just need rate to stop rising, we need rate to fall to pretty much zero.

* and if we could magically get rates to stop rising, and fall to zero, tomorrow, we'd still have about 2 degrees of warming from all the emissions already up there.

People have completely missed the point: the rate of growth of rate of
emissions might have improved in some places. But the problem is total amount
emitted.

Oh, and you don't avert climate change with per capita cuts if population
keeps growing. Which it will, till about 2100.

~~~
api
There is no chance of stopping this. The challenge is massive even if there
were political will, and there is no political will. We need to plan for
climate change as a near certainty and start preparing now.

~~~
LatteLazy
That's exactly what I'm saying. Move to land on a hill. Travel north. Buy up
some tundra that will be futile farm land in 50 years.

We should also pause for a minute and not the silent beauty of this consensus.
No major leader, no scientist, no religious figure ever said Fuck it, let's
not bother. But that's what our species have decided...

~~~
boring_twenties
Is "it's a hoax, invented by the Chinese" (that's a direct quote) somehow
substantively different from "fuck it, let's not bother?"

------
dr_dshiv
Seems to me that an all of the above strategy would let us learn the most. We
are _part_ of nature, so it wouldn't surprise me if we need to get good at
cultivating these feedback loops...

