Fertilizing the Ocean with Iron (2007)

It seems more and more likely to me that the general approach to climate change is going to simply be adaptation. We&#x27;ll have to figure out ways to live and grow food in a hotter world that has more dramatic weather events. I think this will be expensive and could tragically lead to the deaths of many people who cannot afford to live in this new world.<p>If a large country with many poor people are faced with this situation, maybe it&#x27;s likely that they might try one of these geoengineering efforts as a last resort? The environmental effects are unpredictable, but if it could save a lot of lives...

There are so many lower hanging fruit for reducing emissions of and sequestering existing carbon.<p>If you simply restored the majority of the US great plains back to a bison centered ecosystem instead of cattle, you&#x27;d produce a similar resource (bison meat) in large quantity while reducing emissions, and the tall grass would sequester an enormous amount of carbon.

This has been done, I think most people know this.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;environment&#x2F;2012&#x2F;oct&#x2F;15&#x2F;pacific-iron-fertilisation-geoengineering" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;environment&#x2F;2012&#x2F;oct&#x2F;15&#x2F;pacific-...</a><p>You can track down the 8 years of followup articles and research papers.<p>There is no evidence it didn&#x27;t work. There&#x27;s evidence it did.<p>The trick is, tie it to fishing and it might make a difference. Or it might just take pressure off fisheries.<p>You have billions yet to eat more meat, so hurry up with your lab grown meat or start doing things like this, that also should get the same subsidies as things like solar power.

Every time I read something like this, my hubris alarm goes off. We couldn&#x27;t even get trans-fats right, so I don&#x27;t see how we&#x27;re going to cover all the contingencies for something like this.

Our species has repeatedly been really clear: we&#x27;re not going to do anything about climate change. Stop pretending lack of interest is lack of options.

Seems to me that an all of the above strategy would let us learn the most. We are <i>part</i> of nature, so it wouldn&#x27;t surprise me if we need to get good at cultivating these feedback loops...