So Long And Thanks For All The Fish From The Restored Ocean Pasture
RV PolarStern and her European/Indian ocean replenishment and restoration team sails for home. The flagship German research vessel of the European Union and her science crew of 50 scientists from India and around the world departed from their Southern Ocean pasture a day or so ago.
The ship and her dedicated scientists had prescribed and on January 27th administered 10 tonnes of iron to a several hundred sq. kilometer patch of ocean. The iron was just the tonic the ocean needed and within days a verdant ocean pasture began to bloom. Ocean satellites picked up an image of the bloom on Valentines Day, what better gift for Mother Earth, than an ocean restored and growing nutritious plankton for every form of sea life from tiny krill to the great whales and everything in between fish, penguins, seals, and seabirds.
The project, years in planning, had run into a brief tempest and delays whipped up by spin of dark green organizations as was about to begin. Claims that the work would be in violation of some mysterious laws, were quickly proven to be lies. Those spinning the claims were dark greens who have in many statements declared that they are against mitigation of climate changing CO2 that involves the production of carbon credits.
As EU president Vaclav Klaus stated earlier this week, “Environmentalists are less concerned about any crisis posed by global warming than they are eager to command human behavior and restrict economic activity.”
The EU president has that right even though his skepticism on the topic of global warming, wrought by the obvious casting of the topic as a political fodder by the dark greens, is ill advised. He’s hardly alone in his choosing to oppose the idea of climate change when faced with such obvious politicization of the important topic. More intelligent and caring leaders prevailed in Germany reversing a nefarious order by German environment minister that threatened to stop the project as the ship arrived on station in the Southern Ocean.
Ocean replenishment and restoration as proven possible by this experiment might remover seven times as much CO2 from the air as the Kyoto Protocol calls for. The oceans pastures have been decimated by high CO2 resulting in billions of tonnes of lost plant life in just a few decades. Replenishing the mineral micro-nutrients, esp. iron, can restore those pastures and turn billions of tonnes of CO2 into ocean life instead of acid forming ocean death.
Here at Planktos Science we are tickled green that the LohaFex ocean replenishment and restoration project has gone so well. The tonnes of iron replenished are now growing what will be millions of tonnes of plankton biomass which in turn will produce hundreds of thousands of tonnes of krill and other zooplankton.
The next step on that food chain are the baby calves of the Southern Ocean Great Whales as the new pasture is within their traditional nursery. The food chain formula tells us to expect tens of thousands of tonnes of whales might be nourished from this wonderful gesture led by Chief Scientists Victor Smetacek and Wajih Naqvi, our most heartfelt thanks to you both.
