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Or we could spend $1B seeding the ocean with iron sulphate to create algal blooms that reflect sunlight well. Harvest the excess salmon to balance the ecosystem

Or we could spend $1B seeding the ocean with iron sulphate to create algal blooms that reflect sunlight well. Harvest the excess salmon to balance the ecosystem, and repeat whenever we need to dump some heat. As the co2 continues to climb buffer the oceans with a cheap base to counter acidification. Which will sequester that carbon as a salt.

sveme 7y ago
Oh, how I love these handwaving arguments. You don't think that a huge algal bloom in our oceans, a prime protein source for billions of people, will not have an effect on the life in the ocean? Just one of a plethora of inadvertent effects that would need to be thoroughly studied...
- dr_dshiv 7y ago
  Studied by testing the effects, I assume? A large contingent don't want this research done because it may point to a technological solution, reducing political pressure of reducing emissions.
  - Buttons840 7y ago
    "Good news! We found out how to have far greater control of the environment. This will allow us to fix the environment we already had control of and completely ruined!" They have a point I think.
  - imtringued 7y ago
    If humans are willing to damage the climate for a profit they are also willing to damage other things for a profit.
- dr_dshiv 7y ago
  Here is a recent article on the topic: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-ocean-iron-aerosols-fertilise-science-david-king-a8988241.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-oce...
  - galangalalgol 7y ago
    They talk about how little carbon is actually sequestered. I assumed it was actually none. The goal was actually to make large swaths of ocean reflective. At IR algae mats are almost as white as snow.
herogreen 7y ago
This seems impossible to undo, so extremely risky.
- galangalalgol 7y ago
  It is temporary in nature. I envision it as a bandaid to bridge us until we finish burning anything we can dig up that is cheaper than carbon neutral energy sources. That is unless you used too much and the ice sheets expanded too far locking us in a snowball earth. Napkin math puts that at around $1.5B
gumby 7y ago
Back in the 1990s Jeff Shrager (then at the Carnegie institute at Stanford) built a library of algae strains that thrived at different concentrations of O2 and CO2 as a last ditch hedge against climate change. Then he lost funding and the library was discarded.

sveme 7y ago

Oh, how I love these handwaving arguments. You don't think that a huge algal bloom in our oceans, a prime protein source for billions of people, will not have an effect on the life in the ocean? Just one of a plethora of inadvertent effects that would need to be thoroughly studied...

dr_dshiv 7y ago
Studied by testing the effects, I assume? A large contingent don't want this research done because it may point to a technological solution, reducing political pressure of reducing emissions.
- Buttons840 7y ago
  "Good news! We found out how to have far greater control of the environment. This will allow us to fix the environment we already had control of and completely ruined!" They have a point I think.
- imtringued 7y ago
  If humans are willing to damage the climate for a profit they are also willing to damage other things for a profit.
dr_dshiv 7y ago
Here is a recent article on the topic: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-ocean-iron-aerosols-fertilise-science-david-king-a8988241.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-oce...
- galangalalgol 7y ago
  They talk about how little carbon is actually sequestered. I assumed it was actually none. The goal was actually to make large swaths of ocean reflective. At IR algae mats are almost as white as snow.

herogreen 7y ago

This seems impossible to undo, so extremely risky.

galangalalgol 7y ago
It is temporary in nature. I envision it as a bandaid to bridge us until we finish burning anything we can dig up that is cheaper than carbon neutral energy sources. That is unless you used too much and the ice sheets expanded too far locking us in a snowball earth. Napkin math puts that at around $1.5B

gumby 7y ago

Back in the 1990s Jeff Shrager (then at the Carnegie institute at Stanford) built a library of algae strains that thrived at different concentrations of O2 and CO2 as a last ditch hedge against climate change. Then he lost funding and the library was discarded.