Rogue German Ship Fertilizing Southern Ocean

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Rogue German Ship Fertilizing Southern Ocean in Dangerous Climate Geo-Engineering Experiment

- Precedent set that private researchers can experiment on Earth's shared biosphere without oversight. Protests highlight oceans are not carbon dumps, a biosphere cannot be engineered.

January 20, 2009 By Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet http://www.ecoearth.info/newsdesk/

(Seattle, WA) -- RV Polarstern, a German research ship from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, is to dump twenty tons of iron sulphate over 300 square kilometres of the Scotia Sea, off Chile's coast, near the Antarctic Peninsula. The chemical cargo -- normally used to treat lawns and sewage -- is likely to provoke a massive algal bloom big enough to be seen from outer space.

German and Indian scientists are hoping the experiment will show that such manmade algae blooms can provide a quick fix to climate change by absorbing carbon into the sea. In fact, it is a desperate attempt to put off hard climate change policies by using technology to further create a human dominated "Frankensphere". Along with other geo-engineering proposals such as space mirrors and aerosol release, seeking to engineer the biosphere holds great risks of unintended consequences such as further climate destabilization and global ecological damage.

The experiment breaches the global moratorium on ocean fertilization activities recently agreed under the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity and defies agreements against dumping of wastes in the sea. Ocean fertilization treats oceans as carbon dumps, and will severely deplete already troubled marine ecosystems.

"This is one of the first of many coming attempts to begin 'geo-engineering' the biosphere as a desperate measure to address climate change," notes Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet's President. "Geo-engineering won't work -- the atmosphere is simply too complex -- and trying will almost certainly make things worse. It diverts from sufficient emissions reductions, conservation and efficiency, and renewable energy solutions to stop climate change and restore global ecological systems."

Along with other geo-engineering proposals such as space mirrors and aerosol release, seeking to engineer the biosphere holds great risks of unintended consequences such as further climate destabilization and global ecological damage.

Global protest has already led to a review of the experiment. And in recent days 1,200 people from 63 countries have sent hundreds of thousands of protest emails from Ecological Internet's Earth Action Network to the German government[1]. They have demanded the experiment be cancelled, and Germany agrees to a permanent ban on large-scale geo-engineering experiments and implementation, until all other options are exhausted, and global geo-engineering protocols are in place.

ENDS

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