Can Anyone Stop the Man Who Will Try Just About Anything to Stop Climate Change? | Hacker News Reader

Can Anyone Stop the Man Who Will Try Just About Anything to Stop Climate Change?

psmag.com

57 pointsyread53 comments

This is a really good wiki article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization

There's a few key ideas here: The limiting factor in plankton growth is iron. So we can hit it with other things, the plankton needs more iron to incorporate into chloroplasts to grow. Algal/plankton blooms can be toxic from the chemicals produced, but they are usually toxic because they deplete oxygen in the environment. I suspect that this would be manageable in the ocean, since there's constant mixing and the ocean is _big_. http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/habharm.html

Iron seeding of the ocean already happens, in the form of dust storms blowing onto the ocean. We've been able to see the effects of it, and it does as it says-- it increases plankton life in the ocean.

I think that a lot of posts here are underestimating the size of the ocean or over-estimating the capability of humans. We would have to dump so much iron into the ocean to make the whole thing anoxic. If we did this in a controlled manner (and in small paths, so we wouldn't end up with big un-mixed anoxic patches) then I think this is very reasonable.

All of you should be careful not do have the knee-jerk "nah that sounds crazy!" reaction. This is HN, and you ought to know that the disbelievers don't have a good track record.

I read in that wiki article that the data from Russ George's efforts discussed in the OP article - that all that data was opened to the public in 2014 - but I can't find the data so far. Do you know where it might be found?

Just follow the WP links.

"Researchers, interested organizations or individuals are welcome to use our scientific data library for legitimate research endeavours. This data is available free of charge, however we do ask that a memorandum of understanding is executed for access privileges to our data. Please send us a message using the Contact Us form and state the nature of your request."

http://www.haidasalmonrestoration.com/index.php/science/scie...

Whoops!!! I think I must've opened the page of frenzy of tab-opening, but then either not return to it, or closed it immediately without realizing what it was - that link has been visited, but I clearly didn't check it for the desired content. Thank you! :)

This is what I could find. http://www.whoi.edu/ocb-fert/page.do?pid=38315

Also: it sounds less horrible than pumping sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere.

I just don't understand why everyone refuses to study the results (at least, from what the article seems to convey). Yeah, it was short-sighted and illegal and probably dangerous in ways that are currently inexplicable -- but isn't that the whole point? Go ahead and arrest the guy, or sue him, whatever -- but scientists should not pass up the opportunity to study the effects of an actual geoengineering intervention.

I'm flabbergasted at this, as well. It talks in the article about the attitude this guy takes, "Don't say what SHOULD happen, look at the data, let the data talk to you and tell you what's going on!"

With the caveat that we must be cautious not to use statistical analysis of the data to lie outright, I want to say:

Any attitude that does not at least INCLUDE the one Russ George advocates about LETTING THE DATA TELL YOU what is going on is ANATHEMA to science, Western Society, and human life in general.

Seriously.

Politicizing science is always bad. But James Hansen seemed quite determined to do that. It's even possible to note that NASA has an interest in Mars missions.... although that seems extremely farfetched. But who knows?

If iron seeding works and causes no calamity we can't handle, we'd be derned fools not to do it at some point, assuming we need to of course.

Then again, what is the preferred equilibrium for the planet and how do we know that? There wasn't always widespread environmentalism and I've heard the idea that environmentalism in its present form emerged only after computers became more widespread ( from "All Watched Over By Machines..." by Adam Curtis.)

Is that crackpottery or is it a salient observation? I can't even tell any more.

I don't really get to term myself an environmentalist at all, because I'm absolutely in favor of a "stewardship" model of using the earth's resources- meaning, in this case, that if we see fit to set the equilibrium point to some other level, then we should do so guiltlessly- however, my major concern is that we haven't successfully managed to create long-term viable ecologies via planning yet. We don't understand the many complexities associated with organisms yet -we understand a LOT, but there is a LOT MORE to understand before we can replicate nature through artifice!

Under that view, things like biodiversity are valuable because they contribute to systemic stability - we can exterminate a species if we need to, nobody has to give us any further 'right' to do so (as in a typical attidue, "What gives you the right to play God with Nature?!")- but it is wise to take a preservationist attitude until we have a proven track record of creating long-term, moderately stable ecological systems - until we can replicate our 'Starship Earth,' we'd do well to keep from destroying it! In other words, at least for me, the currently preferred equilibrium point is one that maintains a semblance of the historical ecology's relative balance, because that's the kind of point where I and my descendants get to not go extinct, and once we can reliably replicate and control such ecologies, it won't matter much anymore, we'll be in a position to choose what happens to which things - right now is the tender point where can destroy naturally developed situations, but cannot reliably replicate them.

But we have much about which to be humble. It's always the sort of thing where - if we can do it and it causes less harm ( and we're dead certain that this is true ), then do it.

The shock from "All Cared..." is - what stability? Which equilibrium? If we choose them, how do we defend our choices? Obviously, nobody was doing this 70,000 years ago ( at least presumably not consciously ) and here we are, so...

To a single-digit approximation, all species are extinct. Is it hubris to think we're smart enough to keep from destroying ourselves, or that we're powerful enough to destroy ourselves?

Suppose we add Pigou carbon taxes. Does that mean poor people suffer more? So can we exempt them? Then isn't that sort of ... Empire-ey, the sort of thing a 19th Century Brit like Rudyard Kipling wrote about?

I find the various anthropic principles to be of good use for this sort of thing.

And the strange thing is nobody is actually preventing people who dump billions of ton of plastic in ocean with this much vigour.

It's millions of tons a year, not billions.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/02/150212-ocean...

More details on that study here: http://jambeck.engr.uga.edu/landplasticinput (10.1126/science.1260352)

Total worldwide production of plastics looks to be about 250 million tons, and they are estimating that about 8 million tons per year make it into the oceans. From the paper, but not the gloss, is that fact that China is by far the leading offender in this, followed by Indonesia, Philippines, and Sri Lanka. India is in 10th place, and the US in 20th. Coastal Europe combined is about the same as the US.

No one is "dumping" plastic on the ocean. It's million of litterers and maritime equipment malfunctions.

Cosmetic companies include microbeads in many products. These end up in the sea. The plastic soaks up some pollutants, and is also eaten by fish. It makes its way into the human food chain. It's a serious problem. Individual consumers didn't really know that they were dumping plastic into the ocean. The manufacturing companies did know, absolutely, that they were dumping hundreds of billions of these microbeads.

Acrylic clothing sheds microfibres. These are too small to be caught by washing machine filters, and they end up in the sea doing the same thing as plastic microbeads.

> Cosmetic companies include microbeads in many products.

Those are now banned, no?

In the US, maybe. About to be banned in the UK. I have no idea what's banned anywhere else.

Is there a way to pull that out of the ocean? Some kind of sifter on the front of a ship? Has anyone tried it?

http://www.theoceancleanup.com/

I had the same thought. This article was published two years ago, surely that's enough time to measure the effect.

The global warming crowd is often linked to an anti-industrial puritanism. They see geo-engineering that deals with their supposed harm mechanism while simultaneously allowing fossil fuel based economic development as "cheating" and ipso facto immoral, like chugging liquor and avoiding the hangover.

If that's the case, I'd expect a "bootleggers and Baptists" equilibrium to form. Maybe it's happening out of sight but I certainly don't see it.

But a plank in your favor - the people who settled the regions where environmentalism has its most fertile soil are on a line of thinking from the old, rock-ribbed Congregationalist and Unitarian preachers from New England. ( source: "American Nations..." ISBN-13: 978-0143122029 )

Ethical standards exist for a reason.

A couple of notes, this is from 2014 and the results of ocean fertilization are better understood today.

The interesting thing for me over the controversy when this was being done was that it reiterated the concern that nobody feels they know how to direct climate change. As a result the only action they can endorse is "affecting it less" by reducing our own carbon emissions. This guy is taking it from the other side saying, "Let's start driving the model and get it to a point we like."

The problem is that now AGW is on a moral footing, with oil companies in the role tobacco companies were in 20ish to 30ish years ago.

That's an artifact of the propagandistic nature of the actors in the issue - on both sides. I believe they do that because it better meets their goals. They have a need to win. And it's not an imagined need - the issue has slipped into an adversarial shape.

The article exposes this well - people are well-bifurcated around two poles - 1) it's the end of the world or 2) it's no big deal.

Maybe that is right, but I rather expect there's something else in play ( because the timescales are fairly long and we're bounded by out ability to learn ) , and that the more productive approach will be more moderate and possibly more experimental. Taking the position of "no, everyone must modify their behavior" does not seem the most reasonable of all possible positions.

But I am just interested in it as a problem to be solved, not as a means of winning something.

IMO, all the furor seems more likely to produce heat than light. It's slightly crank-ey but I still enjoyed Chrichton's "State of Fear" immensely.

Another interesting issue is that not all nations aren't going to agree on a point "we like." Island nations might want to fight for every .1 degree C. Russia and Canada might say fuck it, warming helps us. W Europe who is fairly shielded again major change by ocean currents might say that nobody should geo-engineer because it's not worth the risks (because their risk is lower than others).

I agree with your analysis, except for some of Western Europe. In North-Western europe, Britain and Scandanavia greatly benefit from the Atlantic jet stream being fairly consistently aimed a little farther north; it gives them a warmer climate. We think that global warming has been destabilizing jet streams, and it's making weather have great variation in North America and Northern Europe. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26023166

So, look, if you believe that there is a large chance that climate change will be a global catastrophe in the next few decades -- and there are a lot of people who claim to believe that -- then you should be willing to compromise on other beliefs/other risks to forestall or mitigate that catastrophe.

I suspect the real issue is the "It could be good for Ontario" problem. There is no global climate change catastrophe, rather there are a lot of local changes some of which are completely catastrophic, as in good bye Bangladesh, and some of which are improvements - shorter northern hemisphere winters, longer growing seasons etc.

Flip the switch, because if the fresh water influx in the North Atlantic shuts down the global conveyer currents, it won´t be warming we´re looking at, and it´s great news for India, and Bangladesh, and a catastrophe in the Northern Hemisphere, Europe in particular.

A great empire is always about to fall...

That's not necessarily a crazy opinion, but it's not a mainstream one.

The mainstream opinions seem to be:

1. Climate change isn't real or isn't a big deal.

2. Climate change will be a global catastrophe or even lead to human extinction.

Now, it would be reasonable for the people in group 1 to complain about geoengineering experiments, but actually they don't seem to care. And the people in group 2 are pretty much to a man saying, "Climate change is a huge problem and the only solution that we are willing to entertain at all is cuts to carbon production with no offsetting energy production except through solar and wind -- even though these are clearly not politically feasible in large enough amounts to make the difference, and indeed even though there's growing evidence that even unrealistically massive cuts won't solve the problem."

This suggests that there are some unstated facets to the beliefs of people in group 2.

Well, it used to be called global warming, and now it´s called climate change - did you ever wonder why?

The truly catastrophic climate change - human extinction - outcome is the runaway greenhouse scenario. That´s been floated, but it runs into the evidence that the earth has been considerably warmer before (both poles melted) without that happening. But I suspect it will get another look after this year.

The slightly less catastrophic climate change outcome is the next ice age being triggered. We know what causes them, but there´s a fair amount of variance as to when, and we don´t know what the exact trigger is. The next ice age though, isn´t a catastrophe everywhere, in particular there´s a lot of reasons to believe India benefits for example.

A general warming accompanied by a significant sea level rise is a catastrophe for Bangladesh (most of which is below 10metres above sea level), the Pacific Atolls, India, South America and Africa (heat extremes) extremely expensive for the USA, and Europe, and good news for Scandinavia, Canada and Russia.

However, the general tone of the climate change debate for the last couple of decades, is not such that it would encourage a nuanced debate about the possibility that it could go either way. Nor is the planet really ready for a reasoned debate between its two hemispheres as to which outcome would be preferable, and for whom. However, the rise this year though has even the alarmists scared - especially with the suspicion that it´s entirely probable that there´s been a tendency for scientists to favour the less extreme predictions when modelling the problem, and even those have been bad enough.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...

http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/IceAgeBook/history_of_climate.ht...

Chances are, he will do more harm than good.

This field does not have great track record. See, for example, the introduction of the Cane Toad to Australia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toad#Australia

None of us should care about the chances. Let's study it!

At the very least, look at the opportunity cost. You can have climate change as it's moving now. Or you can try your best at political solutions (good luck stopping China&India's economic growth and associated pollution). Or you can try some geo-engineering.

I was unaware that cane toads, in any number, could have any effect on climate.

"...and that is how we know the earth to be banana-shaped..."

Rabbits have completely transformed the Australian continent, one so dramatic you can see the effects from space. (http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/181383/view) Cane toads have a smaller but measurable effect since they utterly ruin entire ecosystems.

If you think it's impossible for a single organism to have an effect on climate you're mistaken. Wolves, once reintroduced to Yellowstone, have changed the entire park, altering water flow on a massive scale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q

http://warnercnr.colostate.edu/ess-news-and-events/news-head... - "Conservationists Crying Wolf? New Study Shows Yellowstone’s Ecosystem Dynamics More Complex than Trophic Cascade"

"Our results contribute to a growing body of evidence showing that changes in growth of woody deciduous plants following the reintroduction of wolves cannot be explained by the trophic cascade model alone"

> Rabbits have completely transformed the Australian continent, one so dramatic you can see the effects from space. (http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/181383/view)

I don't get it. Which side are the rabbits?

It's the right side, but the so-called effects purported to be visible in this photo are not from the rabbits - the left side of the picture is densely agricultural, while the right side is not.

First of all, I think you are missing my point. These kinds of experiments (i.e. the introduction of variables to "improve" an environment) have a long and sordid history. The Cane Toad is a cautionary tale: it was supposed to eat pests, but instead it took over large swaths of Australia and caused devastation.

What this person is trying to do is seed plankton. Plankton, as anyone who grew up near a coast can attest, commit mass suicide as they over-bloom. This is called the red tide and it caused me to spend a lot of evenings after beach days itchy with watery eyes. It also kills enormous numbers of fish, whales, jellyfish, etc.

EDIT: I can't reply, but I saw your comment that "unlike the cane toad, iron can't reproduce." Unfortunately, you're in error. Iron, like a lot of metals and toxins, can bioaccumulate in the food chain, pass from prey to predator and from gestating mother to fetus, and persist in ways that cause all kinds of havoc [1]

[1]http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147651311...

Unlike the cane toad though, iron can't reproduce. It seems to me entirely possible to study the effects of iron fertilization in a controlled manner, and indeed to tune how it's done for maximum benefit and minimum risk. It seems like that's what George is advocating.

For those of you who are claiming that this "jackass" is throwing "waste overboard", I recommend reading up on the process used[1] and recognizing that this is something that has been studied and experimented with.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization

If they were trying to increase the sockeye run, why would they get credit for a healthy pink run? Pink and sockeye are different types of salmon.

I am not a marine biologist, but is it possible that there is a different substance (maybe something artificial) that could be dumped instead of iron to encourage algae blooms without the associated toxicity? Obviously that would raise the cost. Or maybe iron + substance X to suppress the formation of toxic blooms?

Maybe there is some sort of trade off point here. Where the C02 reduction saves more wildlife than what ends up getting killed off by the toxic blooms?

It's not the iron that's toxic, but the oxygen depletion and other toxins expelled from the algae.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algal_bloom#Harmful_algal_bloo...

They could be using iron dust because it's cheaply available as a byproduct of something else, but I would have expected e.g. silica dust to be cheaper still.

[EDIT:] thanks for the info! TFA went on and on, yet somehow omitted the explanation for iron...

Iron is needed for photosynthesis, and silicia is not. Iron is the key limiting factor in the growth of oceanic plankton, so it has to be iron.

Optionally, we could use volcanic ash instead. But only because it contains a lot of iron. :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization

I bet sewer sludge would be even cheaper, but that practice was banned for a reason. I fail to see how iron oxide is much better.

Or at least add the iron more gradually.

Judging from the very harsh sentences masters who are caught (let alone brag about) dumping waste overboard, you'd rather think there's a conspiracy in favour of rather than against these jackasses.

Iron seeding for plankton is a pretty well talked about solution to introducing forces to work against the warming of the planet. It's not like he's concocted some wild new idea.

Sure, George, Dumping tons and tons of iron into the ocean with no idea what it will do to the ecosystem definitely seems like a 'cautious approach' (quote from the article).

We have strong guesses on the direct guesses. And the scientists are refusing to look at his data because his study was done illegally.

Your sarcastic tone is a great example of how deeply everyone has their head in the sand.

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