Phytoplankton absorbs carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, and there’s a relatively easy way to boost the world’s populations.
Maybe human civilization is only meant to exist until fossil fuels are depleted?
According to who or what? Humans existed prior to discovering oil. In fact I am sure that if we never discovered it humans would still be alive AND the environment for which we depend on wouldn’t be absolutely fucked. Life would certainly be different but at least sustainable for a little while longer then this current shit show.
Fossil fuels gave us the technology to get where we are today. We have overcome natural limits for centuries. I believe we can continue to do that.
I have a better idea.
We throw our politicians and people with power in the sea.
I mean, that would be a lot of iron…
More like lead
Buesseler doesn’t believe adding iron to the world’s oceans on a mass scale to increase phytoplankton levels would cause any harm to global ecosystems. However, he does stress that more research is needed to investigate the effects.
Yes, please!?
doesn’t believe
A far cry from “knows”.
At this point doing something that you’re unsure whether it will make things better or worse is literally a better option than just nothing. I mean really what’s the worst thing that happens? The equivalent of an oil spill? Like that’s ever stopped us from doing things for profit? Why should we hold ourselves to these “better be entirely certain” standards when we never held ourselves to that standard on the way here?
This is a legitimate train of thought. “This might hurt things but I’m not sure how” simply isn’t good enough. Give me a reason to be afraid to use this. Cause we’re not afraid of using oil yet. Fuck it let’s put a bunch of iron in the oceans. Really can’t hurt things any worse than we have, can it?
Like that’s ever stopped us from doing things for profit?
Honestly, that’s what’s holding us back. Make climate repair profitable, and the climate will be fixed inside of a decade.
No that’s what got us here. Profit above all else brought us where we are, it can’t bring us back. Apologies for being blunt but that’s a stupid thought you shared.
I’m not debating the finer points of morality; just the reality of the situation.
By positing it as the reality and not just a reality that we can actually change, you’re playing defense for em. You’re using their talking points.
BTW You don’t have to be debating the finer points of morality to be doing something immoral. Corporatists don’t debate morality either. Because they know they lose, every time. Hint hint.
I’m not playing defense for anyone. I’m recognizing that deconstructing the corporate money-making machine will take longer than we have to fix the more immediate problem of killing off our biosphere, so working with the system, broken as it is, may be the only way forward.
How is it that people are always coming up with zany untested solutions like “dump a fuckton of iron in the sea and see what happens” instead of doing the one thing we actually know how to do – move to clean energy??? It’s not like we don’t have the solution. We just have to actually implement it.
If we stop all carbon production tomorrow, the earth will still continue heating up and be heated for the next 1000+ years.
We must take steps to geoengineer or not only will we be uncomfortable, but we’ll lose significant areas to desertification, lose many species to extinction, and lose many people to water and food shortages.
