The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
Robert Tulip
The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
A-list Washington insider on climate and environment policy, Earth & Water Group Founder, Brent Fewell, has over 25 years of experience in public policy, advocacy, and environmental law. He has just co-authored an article in the influential independent Washington policy newspaper The Hill with climate journalist Alex Carlin. Their conclusion is that “Congress would be wise to consider legislation to support Ocean Pasture Restoration (OPR). More fish in our ocean pastures and less carbon in the atmosphere would be a win-win for the environment and an increasingly hungry world.”
This article is massively important. Its clear analysis directly confronts the moral turpitude and intellectual incoherence of objections to geoengineering. Ocean Pasture Restoration is the method led by Russ George with the Haida Salmon Restoration Project in its successful 2012 fertilization which nearly quadrupled the pink salmon catch, with an economic rate of return over one hundred to one.
Fewell and Carlin say that based on this success, “one would have expected the world to rush to embrace OPR and George as a hero. But that didn’t happen, unjustly the opposite happened. George was maligned by many in the green movement who rejected OPR. But why? Because OPR offers a nature-based solution, removing carbon already in the atmosphere and repurposing it into new ocean life, rather than reducing carbon emissions. Many within the mainstream climate movement and radical environmentalists viewed OPR as a threat to their agenda of targeting and eliminating fossil fuels.”
Here we see the nub of the stupidity and cowardice that infests climate science and politics. The salmon catch chart linked above provides simple compelling evidence of the effectiveness of feeding salmon fingerlings before they die at sea. But somehow fisheries scientists are unable to even comment on the validity of this evidence. It appears they have been bullied into silence by the gross politicisation of climate change.
The “agenda of targeting and eliminating fossil fuels” is something continually invoked by its advocates as “of course the top priority”. But where is the evidence for this ritual assertion? There is none, outside partisan mythology. This alleged “top priority” can at best remove about 1% of radiative forcing per year, effectively nothing.
Reliance on decarbonisation leaves the world wide open to the massive risk of tipping points that could be prevented by investment in new technology. OPR presents a paradigm shift in climate politics, a way to cooperate with the fossil fuel industry and the capitalist system to secure sustained abundance and stability. That is exactly why greens oppose it.
The politics of climate made Russ George a convenient demon to justify the foolish assault on the world energy system at the core of IPCC thinking. Instead of tilting at windmills with the IPCC, serious analysts should take this article in The Hill as a starting point to change their views on climate priorities, creating the policy for major immediate investment in technologies such as OPR.
Bridging the political gap on climate policy requires recognition that the scientific world has gone down a wrong path in calling for an end to fossil fuel use. US Republicans will engage constructively once emission reduction is not the main climate agenda. Converting CO2 into biomass and other profitable commodities through technologies like OPR offers the vision of a way to fix the climate without attacking the world economy. Climate politics has to escape from its partisan tribal blockages. Ocean pasture technology is the type of game-changing breakthrough that is urgently needed. As The Hill article says, “OPR presents the opportunity of our lifetime to address climate change without bankrupting the U.S. economy and will give the U.S. time to transition to new cleaner sources of fuel in a more sensible timeframe and in a cost-effective manner.”
Robert Tulip
https://russgeorge.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Alaska_Salmon_Economics_Chart1-470x260.png
The climate solution that can also restore our seas
By Brent Fewell and Alex Carlin, Opinion Contributors – 10 May 2022
The National Academies of Sciences released a report in December 2021 assessing potential benefits of ocean-based carbon dioxide removal strategies and calling for more research to learn how these methods could help mitigate the impacts of climate change. Among the strategies recommended is ocean iron seeding or ocean pasture restoration (OPR).
The idea behind OPR has been around for decades. In 1993, John Martin, a top American oceanographer, proposed the first of a dozen experiments, adding miniscule amounts of iron to patches of the South Pacific Ocean stimulating the production of algae and ocean biomass. Martin had shown that many parts of our world’s oceans are starving for iron, lack of which suppresses ocean photosynthesis and its biological pump.
Just like agricultural pastures, “ocean pastures” need an array of nutrients for health and productivity. Algae, phytoplankton, is the base of aquatic food webs. It’s the primary food source for zooplankton, such as copepods and krill, which in turn are the primary food for whales, fish and seabirds.
Fast forward 20 years, an entrepreneur environmentalist, Russ George, embarked on the largest ocean iron project to date 200 miles off the coast of Alaska and Canada. Supported by Canadian native, provincial and federal governments they dusted an ocean area 60×60 miles with just 100 tons of iron rich dust in the Gulf of Alaska. The goal was to restore the regional salmon fisheries. And, indeed, it did.
Within days, the ocean was teeming with life. Whales, dolphin, tuna, salmon and seabirds feasted on restored plankton blooms. Satellite imagery revealed the bloom grew to be roughly the size of the state of Virginia. The pasture captured 150-200 million tons of CO2 in the form of billions of tons of new ocean plankton — fish food. It sequestered 15 million to 20 million tons of CO2 miles down in the deep abyss. The following year Alaska’s pink salmon witnessed historic catches, four times those forecasted, delivering hundreds of millions of dollars (in USD) into the state’s economy. It cost under $5 million.
The Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation project was a resounding success. One would have expected the world to rush to embrace OPR and George as a hero. But that didn’t happen, unjustly the opposite happened. George was maligned by many in the green movement who rejected OPR.
But why? Because OPR offers a nature-based solution, removing carbon already in the atmosphere and repurposing it into new ocean life, rather than reducing carbon emissions. Many within the mainstream climate movement and radical environmentalists viewed OPR as a threat to their agenda of targeting and eliminating fossil fuels.
The National Academies of Science report confirms the legality of the work and potential in OPR. However, parts of the report may perpetuate misinformation and fallacies often advanced by OPR opponents. For example, the report implies that OPR might create unintended harmful algal blooms. It appears to wrongly state that there was no link to enhanced salmon returns in the Haida project, despite Alaska harvesting the largest salmon catch in history in 2013.
The Chesapeake Bay and Gulf of Mexico have taught us that too much algae in the wrong ocean location can be harmful, but OPR is only possible hundreds of miles offshore in the deepest regions of the ocean where iron is extremely limited, and no record of hazardous algal blooms exist.
Experts estimate climate change could cost the U.S. $2 trillion per year over the next 50 years due to fires, flood and drought.
OPR presents the opportunity of our lifetime to address climate change without bankrupting the U.S. economy and will give the U.S. time to transition to new cleaner sources of fuel in a more sensible timeframe and in a cost-effective manner.
OPR may also provide solutions to endangered species, such as Right Whales. New federal rules to reduce whale entanglements endanger Maine’s $1.4 billion lobster industry. Growing evidence suggests that ship-whale collisions may be the biggest threat to the whales’ survival rather than lobster trap entanglement. Right Whales, like most marine mammals, migrate to ocean pastures with plentiful food. George’s proposed OPR projects in New England would attract whales away from major shipping channels and lobster grounds, thereby protecting whales and commercial fishing, while quickly bringing back Atlantic Salmon to historic abundance.
Congress would be wise to consider legislation to support OPR. More fish in our ocean pastures and less carbon in the atmosphere would be a win-win for the environment and an increasingly hungry world.
Brent Fewell is the former deputy assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Water and founder of Earth & Water Law.
Alex Carlin is a foreign correspondent for environment, specializing in climate, for the Center for Media and Democracy. He has blogged from every United Nation Climate Conference since 2014.
Robert Tulip
Thanks Greg and Ernie for these interesting responses. I also received a very positive comment from Victor Smetacek, leader of ocean iron fertilization scientific field testing in the Southern Ocean.
Greg, I don’t think your phrase “hope for the best” is an accurate characterisation of the Haida experimental method. It specifically targeted pink salmon at the critical stage of their two year life cycle in the ocean, at the time and place where they were most vulnerable to death from starvation. The quadrupling of pink salmon yield worth a billion dollars over four generations as clearly shown in the graph is hardly something that could be achieved without rigorous planning.
Please don’t just accept the malicious assertions of ideological critics of this project. Its amazing level of political status as a geoengineering talisman indicates the scope for distortion. Of course there is also risk of exaggeration of benefits, but the data in the graph from the Alaska authorities is independent and conclusive. What else could have caused such a major and valuable anomaly other than the Haida iron test?
And by the way, the extreme scandal of Canadian government theft of project data is still something that has not been widely understood or publicised. An underlying problem is the arrogance of the scientific community, with widespread acceptance of the word of ideologues, apparently due to the belief that only the academic guild has a right to conduct such tests. I hope the article in The Hill will cause some chastening and humility among those who accepted the condemnation of the Haida test.
Robert Tulip
From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com <geoengi...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Ernie Rogers
Sent: Monday, 16 May 2022 9:40 AM
To: gh...@sbcglobal.net
Cc: geoengi...@googlegroups.com; carbondiox...@googlegroups.com; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; Robert Tulip <rtuli...@yahoo.com.au>; brent....@earthandwatergroup.com
Subject: Re: [geo] Re: [CDR] The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
Okay, guys, let's dig into this graph and see what we can learn. Pink salmon are the fish we are talking about here. They have a two year cycle. I see on the graph that until the experiment, the production each year (odd and even years) is about the same. There are essentially two independent populations that don't breed with each other because they spawn on different cycles. The iron fertilization appears to have benefitted the one-year-old fish because they "exploded" on their spawning run one year later. We imagine that more fish reached the spawning beds that year, That means a better return of their offspring, and we see those increased offspring yielding a greater production two years later.
In my view, the iron fertilizing experiment was a clear success. It worked because at least in part iron availability was the limiting factor. Such was the case in those particular waters. I think I have read that iron fertilization has failed in other areas where some other nutrient was limiting, such as nitrogen and phosphorus. What we have here is a good first steip. Now, we know we can improve ocean health through "husbanding" of the ocean. I like that word better than farming --it allows that we can improve the natural environment while also producing more food for people.
Fertilization is an important aspect of helping nature to be more productive. Iron was a good place to start. However, about 80% of the world's surface waters are very low in nitrogen and phosphorus. There are many good books on chemical oceanography, one is a great short read by Wally Broeker. The books explain how nitrogen and phosphorus are depleted only in surface waters, the few hundred meters of water near the top. Wherever deep water is pushed to the surface by currents and wind. they bring dissolved nitrogen and phosphorus to the surface, and the health of the oceans increases tenfold. Those locations with natural upwelling produce most of the ocean fish.
Let's get on with the planning and execution of human interventions that have such profound effects on ocean health--AND they absorb CO2.
/Ernie Rogers
On Sun, May 15, 2022 at 1:19 PM Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
Robert,
I'm all for repeating Russ's experiment, this time with actual measurments of net CDR and other effects. But without a solid understanding of what went on out there it is premature to give a green light to indescriminant, full scale IOF. For example, if IOF benefits the entire food chain, why did only pink salmon returns dramatically increase? How does one explain alternating high and averge to low returns in the odd and even years, respectively, following the OIF? What was the actual CDR achieved? There's a lot made of "restoration" of fisheries etc., but are the observed increases actually restoration or something way outside "natural" abundances? If iron is the controling factor of fish populations, then it would seem fish should already be at the top of their game since human activity has presumably increased iron (dust) delivery to the Pacific since pre-industrial times.
Am all for testing hypotheses with solid science protocols and measurements, and this is a worthy hypothesis. But let's not just add iron and hope for the best, as did Russ.
Greg
On Friday, May 13, 2022, 07:35:30 AM PDT, 'Robert Tulip' via Carbon Dioxide Removal <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
A-list Washington insider on climate and environment policy, Earth & Water Group Founder, Brent Fewell, has over 25 years of experience in public policy, advocacy, and environmental law. He has just co-authored an article in the influential independent Washington policy newspaper The Hill with climate journalist Alex Carlin. Their conclusion is that “Congress would be wise to consider legislation to support Ocean Pasture Restoration (OPR). More fish in our ocean pastures and less carbon in the atmosphere would be a win-win for the environment and an increasingly hungry world.”
This article is massively important. Its clear analysis directly confronts the moral turpitude and intellectual incoherence of objections to geoengineering. Ocean Pasture Restoration is the method led by Russ George with the Haida Salmon Restoration Project in its successful 2012 fertilization which nearly quadrupled the pink salmon catch, with an economic rate of return over one hundred to one.
Fewell and Carlin say that based on this success, “one would have expected the world to rush to embrace OPR and George as a hero. But that didn’t happen, unjustly the opposite happened. George was maligned by many in the green movement who rejected OPR. But why? Because OPR offers a nature-based solution, removing carbon already in the atmosphere and repurposing it into new ocean life, rather than reducing carbon emissions. Many within the mainstream climate movement and radical environmentalists viewed OPR as a threat to their agenda of targeting and eliminating fossil fuels.”
Here we see the nub of the stupidity and cowardice that infests climate science and politics. The salmon catch chart linked above provides simple compelling evidence of the effectiveness of feeding salmon fingerlings before they die at sea. But somehow fisheries scientists are unable to even comment on the validity of this evidence. It appears they have been bullied into silence by the gross politicisation of climate change.
The “agenda of targeting and eliminating fossil fuels” is something continually invoked by its advocates as “of course the top priority”. But where is the evidence for this ritual assertion? There is none, outside partisan mythology. This alleged “top priority” can at best remove about 1% of radiative forcing per year, effectively nothing.
Reliance on decarbonisation leaves the world wide open to the massive risk of tipping points that could be prevented by investment in new technology. OPR presents a paradigm shift in climate politics, a way to cooperate with the fossil fuel industry and the capitalist system to secure sustained abundance and stability. That is exactly why greens oppose it.
The politics of climate made Russ George a convenient demon to justify the foolish assault on the world energy system at the core of IPCC thinking. Instead of tilting at windmills with the IPCC, serious analysts should take this article in The Hill as a starting point to change their views on climate priorities, creating the policy for major immediate investment in technologies such as OPR.
Bridging the political gap on climate policy requires recognition that the scientific world has gone down a wrong path in calling for an end to fossil fuel use. US Republicans will engage constructively once emission reduction is not the main climate agenda. Converting CO2 into biomass and other profitable commodities through technologies like OPR offers the vision of a way to fix the climate without attacking the world economy. Climate politics has to escape from its partisan tribal blockages. Ocean pasture technology is the type of game-changing breakthrough that is urgently needed. As The Hill article says, “OPR presents the opportunity of our lifetime to address climate change without bankrupting the U.S. economy and will give the U.S. time to transition to new cleaner sources of fuel in a more sensible timeframe and in a cost-effective manner.”
Robert Tulip
https://russgeorge.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Alaska_Salmon_Economics_Chart1-470x260.png
The climate solution that can also restore our seas
By Brent Fewell and Alex Carlin, Opinion Contributors – 10 May 2022
The National Academies of Sciences released a report in December 2021 assessing potential benefits of ocean-based carbon dioxide removal strategies and calling for more research to learn how these methods could help mitigate the impacts of climate change. Among the strategies recommended is ocean iron seeding or ocean pasture restoration (OPR).
The idea behind OPR has been around for decades. In 1993, John Martin, a top American oceanographer, proposed the first of a dozen experiments, adding miniscule amounts of iron to patches of the South Pacific Ocean stimulating the production of algae and ocean biomass. Martin had shown that many parts of our world’s oceans are starving for iron, lack of which suppresses ocean photosynthesis and its biological pump.
Just like agricultural pastures, “ocean pastures” need an array of nutrients for health and productivity. Algae, phytoplankton, is the base of aquatic food webs. It’s the primary food source for zooplankton, such as copepods and krill, which in turn are the primary food for whales, fish and seabirds.
Fast forward 20 years, an entrepreneur environmentalist, Russ George, embarked on the largest ocean iron project to date 200 miles off the coast of Alaska and Canada. Supported by Canadian native, provincial and federal governments they dusted an ocean area 60×60 miles with just 100 tons of iron rich dust in the Gulf of Alaska. The goal was to restore the regional salmon fisheries. And, indeed, it did.
Within days, the ocean was teeming with life. Whales, dolphin, tuna, salmon and seabirds feasted on restored plankton blooms. Satellite imagery revealed the bloom grew to be roughly the size of the state of Virginia. The pasture captured 150-200 million tons of CO2 in the form of billions of tons of new ocean plankton — fish food. It sequestered 15 million to 20 million tons of CO2 miles down in the deep abyss. The following year Alaska’s pink salmon witnessed historic catches, four times those forecasted, delivering hundreds of millions of dollars (in USD) into the state’s economy. It cost under $5 million.
The Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation project was a resounding success. One would have expected the world to rush to embrace OPR and George as a hero. But that didn’t happen, unjustly the opposite happened. George was maligned by many in the green movement who rejected OPR.
But why? Because OPR offers a nature-based solution, removing carbon already in the atmosphere and repurposing it into new ocean life, rather than reducing carbon emissions. Many within the mainstream climate movement and radical environmentalists viewed OPR as a threat to their agenda of targeting and eliminating fossil fuels.
The National Academies of Science report confirms the legality of the work and potential in OPR. However, parts of the report may perpetuate misinformation and fallacies often advanced by OPR opponents. For example, the report implies that OPR might create unintended harmful algal blooms. It appears to wrongly state that there was no link to enhanced salmon returns in the Haida project, despite Alaska harvesting the largest salmon catch in history in 2013.
The Chesapeake Bay and Gulf of Mexico have taught us that too much algae in the wrong ocean location can be harmful, but OPR is only possible hundreds of miles offshore in the deepest regions of the ocean where iron is extremely limited, and no record of hazardous algal blooms exist.
Experts estimate climate change could cost the U.S. $2 trillion per year over the next 50 years due to fires, flood and drought.
OPR presents the opportunity of our lifetime to address climate change without bankrupting the U.S. economy and will give the U.S. time to transition to new cleaner sources of fuel in a more sensible timeframe and in a cost-effective manner.
OPR may also provide solutions to endangered species, such as Right Whales. New federal rules to reduce whale entanglements endanger Maine’s $1.4 billion lobster industry. Growing evidence suggests that ship-whale collisions may be the biggest threat to the whales’ survival rather than lobster trap entanglement. Right Whales, like most marine mammals, migrate to ocean pastures with plentiful food. George’s proposed OPR projects in New England would attract whales away from major shipping channels and lobster grounds, thereby protecting whales and commercial fishing, while quickly bringing back Atlantic Salmon to historic abundance.
Congress would be wise to consider legislation to support OPR. More fish in our ocean pastures and less carbon in the atmosphere would be a win-win for the environment and an increasingly hungry world.
Brent Fewell is the former deputy assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Water and founder of Earth & Water Law.
Alex Carlin is a foreign correspondent for environment, specializing in climate, for the Center for Media and Democracy. He has blogged from every United Nation Climate Conference since 2014.
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SALTER Stephen
Hi All
I have previously sent the two attached papers to some of you but perhaps not to all.
Cold water pumped up sinks very quickly. Warm water pumped down rises to a depth set by the mixing ratio on which we have some control. A small positive internal pressure from downwelling helps structural stability. Discovery Channel has filmed a 1:100 tank model which would be moving about 1000 m3 a second at full scale. Elastic stretch over distances larger that the extreme wave amplitude is the best way to get survival. I have drawings of tooling to make 100-metre diameter wave sinks.
I think that some of the iron experiments described by Yoon (2018) were really measuring the navigation skills of people keeping track of which patch of sea that they had treated. I would have preferred low doses in iron deficient regions over much longer periods with analysis from satellites and fish catch.
Stephen Salter
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design
School of Engineering
Mayfield Road
Edinburgh EH9 3DW
0131 650 5704
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-0h14RFq4M&t=155s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BBVTStBrhw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBB6WtH_Ni8
From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com <geoengi...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Ernie Rogers
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2022 12:40 AM
To: gh...@sbcglobal.net
Cc: geoengi...@googlegroups.com; carbondiox...@googlegroups.com; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; Robert Tulip <rtuli...@yahoo.com.au>; brent....@earthandwatergroup.com
Subject: Re: [geo] Re: [CDR] The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
This email was sent to you by someone outside the University.
You should only click on links or attachments if you are certain that the email is genuine and the content is safe.
Okay, guys, let's dig into this graph and see what we can learn. Pink salmon are the fish we are talking about here. They have a two year cycle. I see on the graph that until the experiment, the production each year (odd and even years) is about the same. There are essentially two independent populations that don't breed with each other because they spawn on different cycles. The iron fertilization appears to have benefitted the one-year-old fish because they "exploded" on their spawning run one year later. We imagine that more fish reached the spawning beds that year, That means a better return of their offspring, and we see those increased offspring yielding a greater production two years later.
In my view, the iron fertilizing experiment was a clear success. It worked because at least in part iron availability was the limiting factor. Such was the case in those particular waters. I think I have read that iron fertilization has failed in other areas where some other nutrient was limiting, such as nitrogen and phosphorus. What we have here is a good first steip. Now, we know we can improve ocean health through "husbanding" of the ocean. I like that word better than farming --it allows that we can improve the natural environment while also producing more food for people.
Fertilization is an important aspect of helping nature to be more productive. Iron was a good place to start. However, about 80% of the world's surface waters are very low in nitrogen and phosphorus. There are many good books on chemical oceanography, one is a great short read by Wally Broeker. The books explain how nitrogen and phosphorus are depleted only in surface waters, the few hundred meters of water near the top. Wherever deep water is pushed to the surface by currents and wind. they bring dissolved nitrogen and phosphorus to the surface, and the health of the oceans increases tenfold. Those locations with natural upwelling produce most of the ocean fish.
Let's get on with the planning and execution of human interventions that have such profound effects on ocean health--AND they absorb CO2.
/Ernie Rogers
On Sun, May 15, 2022 at 1:19 PM Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
Robert,
I'm all for repeating Russ's experiment, this time with actual measurments of net CDR and other effects. But without a solid understanding of what went on out there it is premature to give a green light to indescriminant, full scale IOF. For example, if IOF benefits the entire food chain, why did only pink salmon returns dramatically increase? How does one explain alternating high and averge to low returns in the odd and even years, respectively, following the OIF? What was the actual CDR achieved? There's a lot made of "restoration" of fisheries etc., but are the observed increases actually restoration or something way outside "natural" abundances? If iron is the controling factor of fish populations, then it would seem fish should already be at the top of their game since human activity has presumably increased iron (dust) delivery to the Pacific since pre-industrial times.
Am all for testing hypotheses with solid science protocols and measurements, and this is a worthy hypothesis. But let's not just add iron and hope for the best, as did Russ.
Greg
On Friday, May 13, 2022, 07:35:30 AM PDT, 'Robert Tulip' via Carbon Dioxide Removal <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
A-list Washington insider on climate and environment policy, Earth & Water Group Founder, Brent Fewell, has over 25 years of experience in public policy, advocacy, and environmental law. He has just co-authored an article in the influential independent Washington policy newspaper The Hill with climate journalist Alex Carlin. Their conclusion is that “Congress would be wise to consider legislation to support Ocean Pasture Restoration (OPR). More fish in our ocean pastures and less carbon in the atmosphere would be a win-win for the environment and an increasingly hungry world.”
This article is massively important. Its clear analysis directly confronts the moral turpitude and intellectual incoherence of objections to geoengineering. Ocean Pasture Restoration is the method led by Russ George with the Haida Salmon Restoration Project in its successful 2012 fertilization which nearly quadrupled the pink salmon catch, with an economic rate of return over one hundred to one.
Fewell and Carlin say that based on this success, “one would have expected the world to rush to embrace OPR and George as a hero. But that didn’t happen, unjustly the opposite happened. George was maligned by many in the green movement who rejected OPR. But why? Because OPR offers a nature-based solution, removing carbon already in the atmosphere and repurposing it into new ocean life, rather than reducing carbon emissions. Many within the mainstream climate movement and radical environmentalists viewed OPR as a threat to their agenda of targeting and eliminating fossil fuels.”
Here we see the nub of the stupidity and cowardice that infests climate science and politics. The salmon catch chart linked above provides simple compelling evidence of the effectiveness of feeding salmon fingerlings before they die at sea. But somehow fisheries scientists are unable to even comment on the validity of this evidence. It appears they have been bullied into silence by the gross politicisation of climate change.
The “agenda of targeting and eliminating fossil fuels” is something continually invoked by its advocates as “of course the top priority”. But where is the evidence for this ritual assertion? There is none, outside partisan mythology. This alleged “top priority” can at best remove about 1% of radiative forcing per year, effectively nothing.
Reliance on decarbonisation leaves the world wide open to the massive risk of tipping points that could be prevented by investment in new technology. OPR presents a paradigm shift in climate politics, a way to cooperate with the fossil fuel industry and the capitalist system to secure sustained abundance and stability. That is exactly why greens oppose it.
The politics of climate made Russ George a convenient demon to justify the foolish assault on the world energy system at the core of IPCC thinking. Instead of tilting at windmills with the IPCC, serious analysts should take this article in The Hill as a starting point to change their views on climate priorities, creating the policy for major immediate investment in technologies such as OPR.
Bridging the political gap on climate policy requires recognition that the scientific world has gone down a wrong path in calling for an end to fossil fuel use. US Republicans will engage constructively once emission reduction is not the main climate agenda. Converting CO2 into biomass and other profitable commodities through technologies like OPR offers the vision of a way to fix the climate without attacking the world economy. Climate politics has to escape from its partisan tribal blockages. Ocean pasture technology is the type of game-changing breakthrough that is urgently needed. As The Hill article says, “OPR presents the opportunity of our lifetime to address climate change without bankrupting the U.S. economy and will give the U.S. time to transition to new cleaner sources of fuel in a more sensible timeframe and in a cost-effective manner.”
Robert Tulip
https://russgeorge.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Alaska_Salmon_Economics_Chart1-470x260.png
The climate solution that can also restore our seas
By Brent Fewell and Alex Carlin, Opinion Contributors – 10 May 2022
The National Academies of Sciences released a report in December 2021 assessing potential benefits of ocean-based carbon dioxide removal strategies and calling for more research to learn how these methods could help mitigate the impacts of climate change. Among the strategies recommended is ocean iron seeding or ocean pasture restoration (OPR).
The idea behind OPR has been around for decades. In 1993, John Martin, a top American oceanographer, proposed the first of a dozen experiments, adding miniscule amounts of iron to patches of the South Pacific Ocean stimulating the production of algae and ocean biomass. Martin had shown that many parts of our world’s oceans are starving for iron, lack of which suppresses ocean photosynthesis and its biological pump.
Just like agricultural pastures, “ocean pastures” need an array of nutrients for health and productivity. Algae, phytoplankton, is the base of aquatic food webs. It’s the primary food source for zooplankton, such as copepods and krill, which in turn are the primary food for whales, fish and seabirds.
Fast forward 20 years, an entrepreneur environmentalist, Russ George, embarked on the largest ocean iron project to date 200 miles off the coast of Alaska and Canada. Supported by Canadian native, provincial and federal governments they dusted an ocean area 60×60 miles with just 100 tons of iron rich dust in the Gulf of Alaska. The goal was to restore the regional salmon fisheries. And, indeed, it did.
Within days, the ocean was teeming with life. Whales, dolphin, tuna, salmon and seabirds feasted on restored plankton blooms. Satellite imagery revealed the bloom grew to be roughly the size of the state of Virginia. The pasture captured 150-200 million tons of CO2 in the form of billions of tons of new ocean plankton — fish food. It sequestered 15 million to 20 million tons of CO2 miles down in the deep abyss. The following year Alaska’s pink salmon witnessed historic catches, four times those forecasted, delivering hundreds of millions of dollars (in USD) into the state’s economy. It cost under $5 million.
The Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation project was a resounding success. One would have expected the world to rush to embrace OPR and George as a hero. But that didn’t happen, unjustly the opposite happened. George was maligned by many in the green movement who rejected OPR.
But why? Because OPR offers a nature-based solution, removing carbon already in the atmosphere and repurposing it into new ocean life, rather than reducing carbon emissions. Many within the mainstream climate movement and radical environmentalists viewed OPR as a threat to their agenda of targeting and eliminating fossil fuels.
The National Academies of Science report confirms the legality of the work and potential in OPR. However, parts of the report may perpetuate misinformation and fallacies often advanced by OPR opponents. For example, the report implies that OPR might create unintended harmful algal blooms. It appears to wrongly state that there was no link to enhanced salmon returns in the Haida project, despite Alaska harvesting the largest salmon catch in history in 2013.
The Chesapeake Bay and Gulf of Mexico have taught us that too much algae in the wrong ocean location can be harmful, but OPR is only possible hundreds of miles offshore in the deepest regions of the ocean where iron is extremely limited, and no record of hazardous algal blooms exist.
Experts estimate climate change could cost the U.S. $2 trillion per year over the next 50 years due to fires, flood and drought.
OPR presents the opportunity of our lifetime to address climate change without bankrupting the U.S. economy and will give the U.S. time to transition to new cleaner sources of fuel in a more sensible timeframe and in a cost-effective manner.
OPR may also provide solutions to endangered species, such as Right Whales. New federal rules to reduce whale entanglements endanger Maine’s $1.4 billion lobster industry. Growing evidence suggests that ship-whale collisions may be the biggest threat to the whales’ survival rather than lobster trap entanglement. Right Whales, like most marine mammals, migrate to ocean pastures with plentiful food. George’s proposed OPR projects in New England would attract whales away from major shipping channels and lobster grounds, thereby protecting whales and commercial fishing, while quickly bringing back Atlantic Salmon to historic abundance.
Congress would be wise to consider legislation to support OPR. More fish in our ocean pastures and less carbon in the atmosphere would be a win-win for the environment and an increasingly hungry world.
Brent Fewell is the former deputy assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Water and founder of Earth & Water Law.
Alex Carlin is a foreign correspondent for environment, specializing in climate, for the Center for Media and Democracy. He has blogged from every United Nation Climate Conference since 2014.
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Peter Fiekowsky
SALTER Stephen
Hi All
Perhaps permission has been given by the same people who gave permission for plastic in very much larger quantities.
Stephen
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Subject: Re: [HCA-list] RE: The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
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Comment from Alex Carlin
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Subject: Re: The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
Hello All
I am Alex Carlin, a co-author of the The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration. Ernie, thanks for you thoughtful and useful comments. Greg, about your 2 final points, please allow me to correct you:
- human activity has presumably increased iron (dust) delivery to the Pacific since pre-industrial times.
On the contrary, human activity has reduced iron (dust) delivery to the Pacific since pre-industrial times. Because of human caused higher CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, the dry land masses that historically for centuries provided the "dust in the wind" that was delivered to the ocean pastures and nourished them into abundances of fish etc, that extra CO2 caused those dry land masses to become more moist which has led to a huge drop in that nourishing dust being picked up and then falling on the ocean pastures.
- But let's not just add iron and hope for the best, as did Russ.
As you know, Russ and his team set up workstations and laboratories that worked and studied for years before carefully applying his ocean-science theories and then they meticulously canvassed the Haida eddy and placed the dust where it would be most beneficial. This process was fully vetted and approved by the Canadian national, provincial and native governments. Your cavalier ad hominem attack style is not helpful here, and the future generations that will be affected by the way we choose and pursue our solutions to Climate Ruin will not appreciate your supercilious style. Please take my comment as constructive criticism, as I hope we can move forward together as colleagues in a productive manner, without condescensions.
Alex Carlin
Subject: RE: The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
Robert Tulip
New response from Alex Carlin.
From: Alex Carlin <pyn...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 17 May 2022 2:47 PM
To: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>; Robert Tulip <rtuli...@yahoo.com.au>; Peter Fiekowsky <pfi...@gmail.com>
Cc: ernie.e...@gmail.com; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>; Carbon Dioxide Removal <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; brent....@earthandwatergroup.com; Russ George <russ....@gmail.com>; Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [geo] Re: [HCA-list] RE: The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
Dear Greg,
The Hill article, which I co-wrote, essentially calls for several more HAIDAs ASAP. You call for several more HAIDAs ASAP. Therefore, I am perplexed as to why you continue to imply problems with the article. Let me list your unfounded fears:
- You conjure some scary "full scale deployment" specter - what exactly are you talking about? One HAIDA deposits thousands of times less dust than nature does so are you imagining a thousand HAIDAs in a single season? Again, The Hill advocates exactly what you advocate - let's do a few HAIDAs ASAP and yes, in your words, let's "see what happens" since it is perfectly safe to do so, and will supply the data that you and I both want.
- A few HAIDAs per season would constitute and wonderfully satisfy your request for "more research done", and yet you strangely imply you want to do some further academic research (waiting for the "science to be done") before doing more HAIDAs, which contradicts your implications elsewhere ("Russ experiment needs to be repeated, this time with a carefully considered and executed plan for actually measuring the effects of such iron addition") ...again, as you know, doing one up to, let's say 10 HAIDAs in one season is totally safe, and nobody expects 10 simultaneous HAIDAs to happen any time soon, so what is your fear about?
- "The stance there is that the evidence is in, the science has been done and we should proceed with full scale deployment, with the innuendo that anyone disagreeing with that conclusion are obstructionists." Your mistake is again your term "full scale deployment" - what does this mean? Several HAIDAs in one season is risk-free and constitutes exactly what we need to do, which is gather data, which is exactly what you want. Your statement here is 100% straw man arguing - as Peter told you, nobody is proposing this negative thing you are fearing, so please stop accusing people of proposing this.
- "That's going to require oceanographers...labeling them and others who ask for more evidence as arrogant, malicious, obstructionist, ideologues." Again, straw man arguing, nobody is doing that. In fact, we are doing the opposite, we are exactly asking for more evidence, more data, by doing the very best possible evidence and data collection, which is several more HAIDAs ASAP.
- "Hill article/advertisement" - well, apparently my request for you to stop being supercilious is falling on deaf ears, or would you care to back up your rather libelous and certainly offensive accusation that we wrote an advertisement?
Again, Greg, I ask you sincerely to please rise to a minimum level of constructive collegiality that is so necessary for us to make progress in saving future generations from Climate Ruin. Time is of the essence now, let's not waste it.
Alex Carlin
From: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2022 1:47 AM
To: Robert Tulip <rtuli...@yahoo.com.au>; Peter Fiekowsky <pfi...@gmail.com>
Cc: ernie.e...@gmail.com <ernie.e...@gmail.com>; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>; Carbon Dioxide Removal <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; brent....@earthandwatergroup.com <brent....@earthandwatergroup.com>; Russ George <russ....@gmail.com>; Alex Carlin <pyn...@hotmail.com>; Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [geo] Re: [HCA-list] RE: The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
Dear Peter,
Glad to hear that we are both oposed to indescriminant OIF. In my case, I mean that there needs to be more research done before full scale OIF is conducted. But that's not the message in the the Hill article. The stance there is that the evidence is in, the science has been done and we should proceed with full scale deployment, with the inuemdo that anyone disagreeing with that conclusion are obstructionists.
I knew John Martin and can count him among my co-authors. HIs discovery of iron limitation in the ocean is among the most important Earth Science discoveries of the 20th century, IMHO. However, if he we alive today, he too would caution against full scale application of OIF without more testing and more understanding of it effects. That kind of caution is completely absent in the Hill article. Instead, we are told that we must "restore" the ocean with iron, even though iron starvation is it's natural state and we have little idea what the longterm ecosystem consequences would be if this were changed, aside from pink salmon likely flourishing. Cattle flourish on the American plains to the benefit of millions of people, but that's hardly plains ecosystem restoration (or CDR!).
Thus, the Russ experiment needs to be repeated, this time with a carefully considered and executed plan for actually measuring the effects of such iron addition, beyond salmon returns and anecdotal evidence. That's going to require oceanographers, and that's not going to happen by labeling them and others who ask for more evidence as arrogant, malicious, obstructionist, ideologues.
Regards,
Greg
ps What's the backstory as to how a former EPA deputy assistant administrator and an environmental correspondent came to write the Hill article/advertisement?
Great discussion.
Greg, you said, "...it is premature to give a green light to indescriminant, full scale IOF."
What do you mean by that? Who has proposed that?
The only implementation that's been seriously proposed has been to do OIF in eddies, perhaps as much as one percent of the ocean surface, and doing it intermittently, as nature does, perhaps 3-months on and 21 months off.
Who proposed indiscriminate full scale OIF?
Peter
On Sun, May 15, 2022 at 11:15 PM 'Robert Tulip' via Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
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Restoring a proven safe climate (300 ppm CO2 by 2050) for the flourishing of humanity.
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Peter Fiekowsky
Dear Greg,
The Hill article, which I co-wrote, essentially calls for several more HAIDAs ASAP. You call for several more HAIDAs ASAP. Therefore, I am perplexed as to why you continue to imply problems with the article. Let me list your unfounded fears:
- You conjure some scary "full scale deployment" specter - what exactly are you talking about? One HAIDA deposits thousands of times less dust than nature does so are you imagining a thousand HAIDAs in a single season? Again, The Hill advocates exactly what you advocate - let's do a few HAIDAs ASAP and yes, in your words, let's "see what happens" since it is perfectly safe to do so, and will supply the data that you and I both want.
- A few HAIDAs per season would constitute and wonderfully satisfy your request for "more research done", and yet you strangely imply you want to do some further academic research (waiting for the "science to be done") before doing more HAIDAs, which contradicts your implications elsewhere ("Russ experiment needs to be repeated, this time with a carefully considered and executed plan for actually measuring the effects of such iron addition") ...again, as you know, doing one up to, let's say 10 HAIDAs in one season is totally safe, and nobody expects 10 simultaneous HAIDAs to happen any time soon, so what is your fear about?
- "The stance there is that the evidence is in, the science has been done and we should proceed with full scale deployment, with the innuendo that anyone disagreeing with that conclusion are obstructionists." Your mistake is again your term "full scale deployment" - what does this mean? Several HAIDAs in one season is risk-free and constitutes exactly what we need to do, which is gather data, which is exactly what you want. Your statement here is 100% straw man arguing - as Peter told you, nobody is proposing this negative thing you are fearing, so please stop accusing people of proposing this.
- "That's going to require oceanographers...labeling them and others who ask for more evidence as arrogant, malicious, obstructionist, ideologues." Again, straw man arguing, nobody is doing that. In fact, we are doing the opposite, we are exactly asking for more evidence, more data, by doing the very best possible evidence and data collection, which is several more HAIDAs ASAP.
- "Hill article/advertisement" - well, apparently my request for you to stop being supercilious is falling on deaf ears, or would you care to back up your rather libelous and certainly offensive accusation that we wrote an advertisement?
Again, Greg, I ask you sincerely to please rise to a minimum level of constructive collegiality that is so necessary for us to make progress in saving future generations from Climate Ruin. Time is of the essence now, let's not waste it.
Alex Carlin
From: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2022 1:47 AM
To: Robert Tulip <rtuli...@yahoo.com.au>; Peter Fiekowsky <pfi...@gmail.com>
Cc: ernie.e...@gmail.com <ernie.e...@gmail.com>; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>; Carbon Dioxide Removal <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; brent....@earthandwatergroup.com <brent....@earthandwatergroup.com>; Russ George <russ....@gmail.com>; Alex Carlin <pyn...@hotmail.com>; Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [geo] Re: [HCA-list] RE: The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
Dear Peter,Glad to hear that we are both oposed to indescriminant OIF. In my case, I mean that there needs to be more research done before full scale OIF is conducted. But that's not the message in the the Hill article. The stance there is that the evidence is in, the science has been done and we should proceed with full scale deployment, with the inuemdo that anyone disagreeing with that conclusion are obstructionists.I knew John Martin and can count him among my co-authors. HIs discovery of iron limitation in the ocean is among the most important Earth Science discoveries of the 20th century, IMHO. However, if he we alive today, he too would caution against full scale application of OIF without more testing and more understanding of it effects. That kind of caution is completely absent in the Hill article. Instead, we are told that we must "restore" the ocean with iron, even though iron starvation is it's natural state and we have little idea what the longterm ecosystem consequences would be if this were changed, aside from pink salmon likely flourishing. Cattle flourish on the American plains to the benefit of millions of people, but that's hardly plains ecosystem restoration (or CDR!).Thus, the Russ experiment needs to be repeated, this time with a carefully considered and executed plan for actually measuring the effects of such iron addition, beyond salmon returns and anecdotal evidence. That's going to require oceanographers, and that's not going to happen by labeling them and others who ask for more evidence as arrogant, malicious, obstructionist, ideologues.Regards,Gregps What's the backstory as to how a former EPA deputy assistant administrator and an environmental correspondent came to write the Hill article/advertisement?
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/geoengineering/CAEr4H2nNDkrKf%3DJTcHaf7QoLT39NjinL9LWbN9HRn5cm%3DVuykg%40mail.gmail.com.
Robert Tulip
A number of comments in this discussion have raised fascinating strategic concerns about the article in The Hill.
John Crusius provides a good overview of the scientific context for Ocean Iron Fertilization. In response to John’s question why The Hill article uses Ocean Pasture Restoration, the reason is that this designates the targeted small-scale use of OIF to enhance commercial fisheries productivity. OPR is mainly about fish, with the additional aim to generate scientific information that would assist decisions on larger scale OIF.
On Peter Fiekowsky’s comment that no one advocates large scale OIF, this is actually the agenda proposed by Franz Oeste and Renaud de Richter et al in their 2017 article on Iron Salt Aerosol. They call for a doubling of atmospheric iron content, in a way that would provide a much more slow and diffuse addition of iron, providing a number of additional benefits in addition to the direct OIF effects. I support this call from Oeste and de Richter, while recognising that precursor scientific research will be needed to gain political agreement.
The risks of aiming quickly for iron restoration would be far less than not doing so. The fragility and sensitivity of our planetary climate system and looming tipping points mean that steps like iron addition and albedo enhancement are needed to pull us back from the precipice of hothouse tipping points. Failure to implement such systemic methods is rather like denying iron pills to a person with severe anaemia. OPR can provide a commercially funded bipartisan and safe way to research the implications of this transformative earth healing concept, if governments allow it.
On Greg Rau’s question whether the oceans are iron deficient, Russ George argues at several blogs, such as here and here, that scientific papers show emissions have made the planet greener, and in turn this has reduced dust, which means less iron at sea. As well, there is extensive scientific literature on the primary role of iron dust in the feedback processes that caused ice ages. This means steps that move the planet toward such a cooler state would be good.
What about the political critique raised by Wil Burns? Fewell and Carlin claim in their article in The Hill that OPR could address climate change at low cost in a way that enables a slow transition from fossil fuels. This is not climate denial as Wil seems to infer by noting that Fewell has previously written for the Property and Environment Research Center. It is a practical assessment, challenging the inflammatory and polarising argument from the IPCC that we need to speed up emission reduction to address climate change.
CDR using methods such as OIF, together with albedo enhancement, shows every prospect of becoming a superior substitute for decarbonisation.
Such a strategic shift in climate policy would:
- enable safe ongoing use of the vast energy resources and assets of fossil fuels;
- develop new industries like OPR that convert CO2 into useful products, especially biomass;
- mobilise capital, networks, resources and skills for climate repair;
- provide the needed trajectory to the large-scale CO2 removal needed to return toward Holocene conditions and mitigate sea level rise, biodiversity loss, extreme weather and other catastrophic phase shifts.
Emission reduction is far too small, slow, expensive and contested to be the primary climate solution, able to provide only a marginal contribution to the needed cuts to radiative forcing.
As I summarised in my initial comment in this thread available at https://planetaryrestoration.net/f/the-hill-article-on-ocean-pasture-restoration, “Bridging the political gap on climate policy requires recognition that the scientific world has gone down a wrong path in calling for an end to fossil fuel use. US Republicans will engage constructively once emission reduction is not the main climate agenda. Converting CO2 into biomass and other profitable commodities through technologies like OPR offers the vision of a way to fix the climate without attacking the world economy. Climate politics has to escape from its partisan tribal blockages.”
On the Greenpeace critique of PERC, it simply assumes the fossil fuel industries are deceptive and malevolent. Of course there is much track record to justify this suspicion, but writing off PERC, and by extension Fewell on that basis begs the question whether alternative geoengineering-based strategic directions for climate stability and security could be better than the current failed IPCC methods. Recall the Paris Accord pledges if fully implemented would increase total annual emissions by 2030, according to Climate Action Tracker. Digging harder into the hole of emission reduction is not a viable solution.
Climate denial arises in part from the scientific observation that fully achieving Paris Accord pledges would barely dent temperature increase, while bringing great expense and disruption. A better approach is to get the deniers to recognise the security peril posed by a warming planet and support geoengineering as the only practical way to mitigate the dangers.
Robert Tulip
From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com <geoengi...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Wil Burns
Sent: Tuesday, 17 May 2022 2:21 PM
To: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>; Robert Tulip <rtuli...@yahoo.com.au>; Peter Fiekowsky <pfi...@gmail.com>
Cc: ernie.e...@gmail.com; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>; Carbon Dioxide Removal <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; brent....@earthandwatergroup.com; Russ George <russ....@gmail.com>; Alex Carlin <pyn...@hotmail.com>; Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: [CDR] Re: [geo] Re: [HCA-list] RE: The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
And funny you should ask about Brent Fewell, who is one of the darlings of an organization called PERC (https://www.perc.org/people/brent-fewell/). You can read about PERC’s approach to climate change here: https://www.desmog.com/property-and-environment-research-center/, which includes a healthy dose of climate denialism, no doubt fueled by its large amounts of funding from the Koch Brothers, fossil fuel companies, e.g. Exxon, and lots of private foundation money, most of which, wait for it, also comes from the Koch Brothers. PERC’s entire rationale for existence is to deny that there’s an anthropogenic link to climate change, and if one exists, to try to eviscerate any role of government to address it. So, pardon my skepticism that this guy is an honest broker in blithely advocating this technological fix to climate change.
Here's an excerpt from a report by Greenpeace on PERC, and if you want to claim Greenpeace is biased here, explain what part of this rendition is incorrect:
"PERC is a member of the Cooler Heads Coalition and has been listed as a 'networking participant' in the Alliance for America, the 'wise use' umbrella group. Executive Director Terry Anderson was a member of George W. Bush's presidential campaign environmental advisory staff, as was current Secretary of the Interior and former PERC fellow Gale Norton. Kathryn Ratte of PERC addressed the Petroleum Association of America on 'a more grassroots approach to telling the industry's story in the nation's public schools.' She stated that the problem is that 'politically correct environmentalism invaded U.S. public classrooms years ago, and is helping to hold the door shut on your message.' Another problem is that 'children resonate with environmental topics.' Ratte recommended tailoring industry materials to all subjects, including language arts to get at students from all possible angles. Ratte also recommended that industry hold teacher workshops 'in resorts or campuses in pleasant surroundings' to get educators to use their materials. At one point, the meeting turned into a fund raising event. The presenters recommended industry also form partnerships with organizations such as the Foundation for Teaching Economics and PERC because 'If it has a corporate logo on it, it is propaganda.. You need a foot in the door where somebody else is pushing the door open for you... The people best able to push open the door are non-profit education organizations that teachers already think of as being credible,' reasoned Ratte.
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WIL BURNS Visiting Professor Environmental Policy & Culture Program Northwestern University
Email: william...@northwestern.edu Mobile: 312.550.3079
1808 Chicago Ave. #110 Evanston, IL 60208 https://epc.northwestern.edu/people/staff-new/wil-burns.html
Want to schedule a call? Click on one of the following scheduling links:
I acknowledge and honor the Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Odawa, as well as the Menominee, Miami and Ho-Chunk nations, upon whose traditional homelands Northwestern University stands, and the Indigenous people who remain on this land today.
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From: Wil Burns
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2022 8:50 PM
To: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>; Robert Tulip <rtuli...@yahoo.com.au>; Peter Fiekowsky <pfi...@gmail.com>
Cc: ernie.e...@gmail.com; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>; Carbon Dioxide Removal <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; brent....@earthandwatergroup.com; Russ George <russ....@gmail.com>; Alex Carlin <pyn...@hotmail.com>; Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: [CDR] Re: [geo] Re: [HCA-list] RE: The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
Mic drop 😊 And I had to chortle when Peter claimed that no one is advocating full-scale deployment, and then outlines a plan for … full-scale deployment (just because it’s “limited” to 100 regions, and intermittent doesn’t make it full-scale deployment, Peter; read the studies). Too clever by half. wil
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WIL BURNS Visiting Professor Environmental Policy & Culture Program Northwestern University
Email: william...@northwestern.edu Mobile: 312.550.3079
1808 Chicago Ave. #110 Evanston, IL 60208 https://epc.northwestern.edu/people/staff-new/wil-burns.html
Want to schedule a call? Click on one of the following scheduling links:
I acknowledge and honor the Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Odawa, as well as the Menominee, Miami and Ho-Chunk nations, upon whose traditional homelands Northwestern University stands, and the Indigenous people who remain on this land today.
|
.
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Robert Tulip
Hello Brent,
Thank you very much for engaging in this debate with your email below and your article with Alex Carlin. I am not familiar with PERC, but its mission to “examine how markets encourage cooperation instead of conflict over natural resources and how property rights make the environment an asset by giving owners incentives for stewardship” provides an interesting basis to explore how protection of fossil fuel property rights, with their large sunk costs and social inertia, can align to measures to restore the climate. It is no wonder that efforts to destroy these property rights create such polarisation.
The consensus in the IPCC rejects direct cooling measures due to the misconceived moral hazard argument that geoengineering would reduce political pressure to end fossil fuel use. Unlike the consensus on the causes of warming, this dominant view is political not scientific. Far from making the perfect the enemy of the good, the ‘emission reduction alone’ approach makes the impossible the enemy of the possible.
Ocean Iron Fertilization, and therefore also Ocean Pasture Restoration, have been under an effective ban because of this false reasoning, even though OIF would deliver far cheaper cooling than emission cuts could.
OPR has the additional economic and ecological benefit of directly targeting enhanced fish stocks to increase biomass and support food security.
Politicians should take note of the argument that using OPR and other methods will buy time to allow a slower renewable transition, with numerous benefits in slowing warming and reducing economic disruption. This is a least cost abatement argument that should be attractive to conservatives, as a practical strategy to address global warming while continuing to use fossil fuels.
Climate policy is sometimes depicted as a three legged stool, with emission reduction, greenhouse gas removal and direct cooling each having equal contribution. The IPCC rejects this argument, instead seeing emission reduction as the main strategy, with a minor contribution from GGR and none from direct cooling. A more practical approach would be to make direct cooling the main immediate goal, mitigating the risk of tipping points especially at the poles. Methods like OPR could then gradually scale up, addressing legitimate scientific concerns about safety. The way to reduce uncertainty is to proceed with will managed field tests.
In that scenario, there may be no need to cut emissions beyond what market forces will prompt. Fossil fuel companies could become important allies of the shared task of sustaining a liveable planet. A geoengineering-led climate policy could even keep temperature rise below 1.5 degrees without emission cuts. GGR would then kick in to grow to much bigger scale than total emissions, producing a path back toward Holocene stability.
The devastating critique of reliance on emission reduction as the main approach is that committed warming from past emissions is about forty times greater than the warming effect of new annual emissions. Cutting world emissions even to net zero would do little about this much bigger climate forcing already baked into the earth system. Subsidies for public goods should go to the most efficient and effective ways to deliver outcomes. The only strategy that can cool the planet is geoengineering, combining immediate measures to increase albedo such as marine cloud brightening and refreezing the poles with medium term expansion of new industries such as OPR to convert greenhouse gases into useful products.
The whole effort to decarbonise the economy, while having important environmental and economic benefits, is marginal to stabilising the climate. Cutting emissions does nothing to mitigate the immediate security risks of extreme weather, biodiversity loss, hotter temperatures and sea level rise, and creates major political risk. Geoengineering can be a safe and cheap way to buy time to enable a slower transition away from fossil fuels.
Regards
Robert Tulip
From: Brent Fewell <brent....@earthandwatergroup.com>
Sent: Friday, 20 May 2022 12:20 AM
To: Robert Tulip <rtuli...@yahoo.com.au>; w...@feronia.org; 'Greg Rau' <gh...@sbcglobal.net>; 'Peter Fiekowsky' <pfi...@gmail.com>
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Subject: RE: The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
Thank you, Robert, for your email and to all for the thoughtful critique and comments on The Hill article. For those who may be suspicious of my motivations, please know that there are no ulterior or hidden motives. My article was not an advertisement for Russ George, but rather was an effort to promote thoughtful discussion and engagement on a very promising idea. As a former EPA water regulator, I have witnessed far too many times where the perfect becomes the enemy of the good. Like many on this thread, I have endeavored over my career to support and advocate for ideas and actions that can make a big difference in restoring degraded ecosystems, contributing to a healthier environment and improving the human condition. I strongly support continued research into OIF as the NAS has recommended, but don’t support the idea that we must wait until all uncertainty is eliminated. Thanks, again, for the thoughtful and civil engagement on this important topic. And I look forward to the continuing dialogue, but more importantly action.
Brent
Brent Fewell, Esq., Founder and Chair | Earth & Water Law LLC
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Peter Fiekowsky
Peter Fiekowsky
I’m curious, Peter, since I’ve worked a lot with the IPCC over the years, about your reference to its “charter.” Can you provide a reference to said “charter,” and the language in said charter that emphasizes that the overarching objective should be to protect “nature.” The UNGA resolution that established the IPCC, 43/53 contains no such language that I can see.
H simmens
On May 22, 2022, at 6:26 PM, Peter Fiekowsky <pfi...@gmail.com> wrote:
Wil-You're a lawyer and smarter than me. Please find language in their charter prioritizing human survival. Or please stand down.Peter
On Sun, May 22, 2022 at 3:24 PM Wil Burns <w...@feronia.org> wrote:
I’m curious, Peter, since I’ve worked a lot with the IPCC over the years, about your reference to its “charter.” Can you provide a reference to said “charter,” and the language in said charter that emphasizes that the overarching objective should be to protect “nature.” The UNGA resolution that established the IPCC, 43/53 contains no such language that I can see.
wil
WIL BURNS
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Northwestern University
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From: Wil Burns
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2022 8:50 PM
To: Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>; Robert Tulip <rtuli...@yahoo.com.au>; Peter Fiekowsky <pfi...@gmail.com>
Cc: ernie.e...@gmail.com; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>; Carbon Dioxide Removal <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; brent....@earthandwatergroup.com; Russ George <russ....@gmail.com>; Alex Carlin <pyn...@hotmail.com>; Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: [CDR] Re: [geo] Re: [HCA-list] RE: The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
Mic drop 😊 And I had to chortle when Peter claimed that no one is advocating full-scale deployment, and then outlines a plan for … full-scale deployment (just because it’s “limited” to 100 regions, and intermittent doesn’t make it full-scale deployment, Peter; read the studies). Too clever by half. wil
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Peter Fiekowsky
Spot on. And since Peter hasn’t turned up this magical “charter” of the IPCC, I think UNGA Resolution 43/53 is as close as we’re going to get, and it clearly does not support this proposition. I really find it offensive to suggest that the IPCC has some kind of secret agenda to minimize protection of humans; we should be better than that here.
WIL BURNS
Visiting Professor
Environmental Policy & Culture Program
Northwestern University
Email: william...@northwestern.edu
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I acknowledge and honor the Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Odawa, as well as the Menominee, Miami and Ho-Chunk nations, upon whose traditional homelands Northwestern University stands, and the Indigenous people who remain on this land today.
From: Dan Galpern <dan.g...@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 22, 2022 6:25 PM
To: Peter Fiekowsky <pfi...@gmail.com>
Cc: Wil Burns <w...@feronia.org>; Robert Tulip <rtuli...@yahoo.com.au>; Brent Fewell <brent....@earthandwatergroup.com>; Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>; ernie.e...@gmail.com; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>; Carbon Dioxide Removal <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; Russ George <russ....@gmail.com>; Alex Carlin <pyn...@hotmail.com>; Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>; Amos Eno <ae...@landcan.org>; McKie Campbell <mcam...@bwstrategies.com>; jku...@conservamerica.org
Subject: Re: [CDR] Re: The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
As for the IPCC, FYI: the United Nations General Assembly Resolution establishing the IPCC definitely prioritized human survival as well as nature. Indeed, it recognized that "climate change is a common concern of mankind, since climate is an essential condition which sustains life on earth." It also proceeded from the express conviction that "climate change affects humanity as a whole and should be confronted within a global framework so as to take into account the vital interests of all mankind." And, indeed, its very title was "Protection of global climate for present and future generations of mankind." A/RES/43/53 (Dec. 6, 1988)
Dan
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Peter Fiekowsky
Wil-
I did not intend to malign the IPCC or UNFCCC. I claim that the framing, from many decades ago, did not take into consideration the dire circumstances we’re in now, where merely reducing our impact is tantamount to a suicide pact. That was not true in 1988.
Framing an issue is difficult, and needs to be revisited as circumstances advance.
Strong language (mine) may be required to shake us into rethinking…together.
Peter
From: Wil Burns <w...@feronia.org>
Date: Sunday, May 22, 2022 at 5:10 PM
To: Peter Fiekowsky <pfi...@gmail.com>
Cc: Dan Galpern <dan.g...@gmail.com>, Robert Tulip <rtuli...@yahoo.com.au>, Brent Fewell <brent....@earthandwatergroup.com>, Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>, ernie.e...@gmail.com <ernie.e...@gmail.com>, geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>,
Carbon Dioxide Removal <carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>, Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>, Russ George <russ....@gmail.com>, Alex Carlin <pyn...@hotmail.com>, Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>,
Amos Eno <ae...@landcan.org>, McKie Campbell <mcam...@bwstrategies.com>, jku...@conservamerica.org <jku...@conservamerica.org>
Subject: RE: [CDR] Re: The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
That’s an entirely different proposition than your original statement, which maligned the motivations of the IPCC, incorrectly, and referred to a non-existent charter. PLEASE don’t simply deflect, Peter.
SALTER Stephen
Hi All
I expect that there will be people in India and other countries who think that we are already suffering dangerous interference.
Stephen
From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com <geoengi...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of H simmens
Sent: Sunday, May 22, 2022 11:46 PM
To: Peter Fiekowsky <pfi...@gmail.com>
Cc: Wil Burns <w...@feronia.org>; Robert Tulip <rtuli...@yahoo.com.au>; Brent Fewell <brent....@earthandwatergroup.com>; Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net>; ernie.e...@gmail.com; geoengineering <geoengi...@googlegroups.com>; Carbon Dioxide Removal
<carbondiox...@googlegroups.com>; Planetary Restoration <planetary-...@googlegroups.com>; Russ George <russ....@gmail.com>; Alex Carlin <pyn...@hotmail.com>; Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>; Amos Eno
<ae...@landcan.org>; McKie Campbell <mcam...@bwstrategies.com>; jku...@conservamerica.org
Subject: [geo] Re: The Hill article on Ocean Pasture Restoration
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