FORBES is writing again about how ocean plankton might help save the world.

Tim Worstall

FORBES writer Tim Worstall has penned another good article that supports our premise that dust + plankton = less CO2, grow more fish, thus helping to save the world.

Their item titled The Very Existence Of The Bahamas Shows That Iron Fertilisation Of The Oceans Would Mitigate Climate Change pretty much says it all right in that title.

Worstall provides an account of the new science report and a good telling of the story. In one paragraph he says,

“It’s long been known that certain areas of the ocean are “deserts”, in that they don’t really support much life. Most of the nutrients that the food chain needs to get going, to feed basic algae and plankton, are there except for the iron that they need (there are larger areas lacking in silicic acid as well). It’s also been known for a long time that if you stick iron (just shoveling iron sulphate over the gunwale works well enough) into the water in such areas then the algae will bloom. As they die after the normal sort of algal lifespans some portion sink to the bottom and end up, over time, turning into rock. This is quite wonderful if you think that atmospheric or oceanic carbon levels are a problem as this locks away some of those emissions for geologic timescales.”

And while he goes into more detail including pointing out the attack on me, Russ George, one other paragraph he provides offers some curious contrarian notions about the potency of a tiny amount of iron reaching the oceans when he says,

“Moving well away from what we can currently prove and into the realms of speculation there are those who suggest that the 20 th century cooling (approximately 1945 to 1975) was caused by this. The massive expansion of coal powered shipping after WWI meant that coal ash was falling into the oceans: and coal fly ash has a significant portion of iron in it. Add in a decade or two of delay to see the effects of the sequestration through that iron fertilisation and then also the way in which oil largely replaced coal in the 50s and early 60s and we have our explanation of that cooling. But do note that is very much a speculation.”

This FORBES writer points out that there is a terrible diss-connect being put forward by the pundits and climate change vested interest groups debating this issue. The all call for more study, a surefire way to make certain nothing happens. Worstall notes,

” As the standard mantra goes, more research is needed on this point. But given the urgency of climate change as a public policy matter it really is astonishing that research isn’t being done. The last two official research projects were done 5 and 10 years ago and they’re making noises about actually prosecuting a guy who made a private attempt a couple of years back. It seems absurd that none of those tens of billions being spent on climate change can be, or are being, used to check this out more thoroughly.”

Read the new Forbes story here  The Very Existence Of The Bahamas Shows That Iron Fertilisation Of The Oceans Would Mitigate Climate Change

FORBES has published other work focusing on this topic and my pioneering role. Here’s a link to another of the FORBES articles. The title it “The Cheap way To Deal With Climate Change: Iron Fertilization”

Naturally you can read much more here on this blog on this topic as we are pretty much raising the dust as much as we can.

Another couple popular media stories are here

The Pacific’s Salmon Are Back — Thank Human Ingenuity  – National Review

Did Russ George’s experiment actually work? – Treehugger