Page 266 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

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each of which is over 65 feet long and weighs over 130 tons. Could such a long-
term and violent bombardment be sustained without any accidents or other side
effects? Is declaring war on the stratosphere the best mitigation strategy? The
authors of the 2009 Novim Group report on geoengineering seem to think so
and discuss, apparently without a sense of irony, the possibility of opening fire on
the ozone layer with M1 tank guns loaded with aerosols. 64

ocean iron fertilization

The other scheme hatched at the time was ocean iron fertilization (oIF). “Give
me half a tanker of iron, and I’ll give you an ice age,” biogeochemist John Martin
(a Colby College graduate) reportedly quipped in a Dr. Strangelove accent at a
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conference at Woods Hole in 1988. Martin and his colleagues at Moss Landing
Marine Laboratories proposed that iron was a limiting nutrient in certain ocean
waters and that adding it stimulated explosive and widespread phytoplankton
growth. They tested their iron deficiency, or “Geritol,” hypothesis in bottles of
ocean water, and subsequently experimenters added iron to the oceans in a dozen
or so ship-borne “patch” experiments extending over hundreds of square miles.
oIF worked, just like pouring Miracle-Gro on your tomatoes. Was it possible
that the blooming and die-off of phytoplankton, fertilized by the iron in natural
dust, was the key factor in regulating atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations
during glacial–interglacial cycles? Dust bands in ancient ice cores encouraged
this idea, as did the detection of natural plankton blooms by satellites. 66
Enter the geoengineers. Could oIF speed up the biological carbon pump to
sequester carbon dioxide, and was it a solution to global warming? Because of
this possibility, Martin’s hypothesis received widespread public attention. What
if entrepreneurs or governments could turn patches of ocean soupy green and
claim that the carbonaceous carcasses of the dead plankton sinking below the
waves constituted biological “sequestration” of undesired atmospheric carbon?
or could plankton blooms increase the production of dimethyl sulfate (DMS)
and cool the Earth by making marine clouds slightly more reflective? Several
companies—Climos, Planktos (now out of the business), the aptly named
GreenSea Ventures, and the ocean Nourishment Corporation—have proposed
entering the carbon-trading market by dumping either iron or urea into the
oceans to stimulate both plankton blooms and ocean fishing. The scientific con-
sensus, however, supported by diplomatic negotiations, held that more research
was needed to evaluate risks and benefits before anyone should even think of
selling carbon offsets from ocean iron fertilization. Some of the key questions

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