mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== QUACKGRASS ROOTS Reason, Egoism, Capitalismspreading underground ______________________________________________________________________ Iron into fish The Geritol solution Enviros fear global warming. They fear that carbon dioxide (CO2), which is released by burning coal, oil and gas will cause the world's temperature to rise a bit. Apparently John Martin, an oceanographer from Moss Landing, California, bought into this greenhoax. In July 1988, he announced (in his best Dr. Strangelove accent) that "with half a shipload of Fe [iron] . . . I could give you an ice age!" Leaving aside his appeal to phony climatology, he had a point. Martin figured that certain ocean plants (phytoplankton) are starved for iron; their main source of iron is thought to be the dust that blows off the continents. Supply them with iron and they'll thrive, hoovering CO2 out of the air. Martin's idea became known as the Geritol solution to global warming. The scientific establishment wasn't interested. The enviros among them thought it would be wrong to actually solve the alleged CO2 problem; far better to use it as a stick to beat industrial civilization. Others thought that iron would make little difference to the plants. It took years for the scientific bureaucracy to agree to an experiment. Martin's idea was finally tried in the fall of 1993, sprinkling a dilute iron solution into 64 square kilometers near the Galapagos Islands. Measurements showed that it worked. They tried again in July, and this time the results were comically obvious. "... burst into tears" In July they spread the iron additions over a week's time. The result was described by Kenneth Coale, one of the scientists, as "like driving through the Mojave Desert and coming on a rain forest." It turned the ocean into green soup! "The oceanographers watched in awe as the R. V. Melville plied Pacific waves dyed a soupy green by a bumper crop of tiny ocean plants. ... Only a day before, this patch of water near the Galapagos Islands had sparkled with electric blue clarity, a quality owed to the general absence of ... phytoplankton." "Phytoplankton grew so successfully that concentrations of the photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll increased by a factor of 30 to 40 in the water, accounting for the green color." Some of the scientists were so overcome by the sight that they "burst into tears!" Zillions of little problems Alas, the scheme will not dramatically reduce CO2 levels, at least in the short term. Phytoplankton hoover up CO2 all right. But zooplankton (microscopic animals, wee beasties) hoover up phytoplankton! As they digest it, most of the CO2 is released. Only the carbon held in the tissues of the animals stays in the ocean. Not much help here in reducing the air's CO2 level. So it was all a waste of time, right? Wrong! Strategic thinking There are bigger issues here than the greenhoax effect. Let's apply a little strategic thinking. Whose interests are involved? The plants first--they'd love to have more iron. The wee beasties too--they'd love to have more plants. Fish too--microscopic plants and animals are fish food. Do any humans have an interest in fish food? Well, yes: more fish food means more fish. Fishermen would love to have more fish! Can fishermen do anything about this? Well, yes. They spend a lot of time on the ocean. They can fertilize as they go. The cost would be lost in the decimal places of their other expenses; iron is cheap. Ideas for fishermen A rough and ready calculation suggests that catching 10 tonnes of fish removes about a pound of iron from the ocean. Have fishermen been "mining" the oceans for iron all these centuries, as farmers mined their soil of minerals before widespread use of fertilizer? Would supplying iron restore historical levels of fishery productivity? Would it boost productivity far beyond anything in history? If a normally cruising boat can fertilize one-half square kilometer per hour (say an area 50 meters wide by 10 kilometers long), the application rate would only have to be about a pound of iron per hour. It would add only trivially to the cost of running a boat. If iron fertilization became routine practice among fishermen, lesser rates might be needed. Mid-latitude summer, with long hours of daylight for the plants to use, should be the best time of year to fertilize. In the tropics, as in the experiment, any time should be fine! The experimenters used a dilute solution of iron salts, but a powdery commercial product called 'micronized iron' is said to work well in aquariums. There may be better or cheaper alternatives. Assuming the idea works on today's fishing grounds, one or two generations of a commercial species should be enough time to create a highly profitable result. Better fed fish should have bigger families with faster growth and better survival prospects. How can you learn sooner if iron will work on today's fishing grounds? Just repeat the original experiment in a small area! If the water turns green after a week of fertilizing that area, it works! If it doesn't turn green, iron might still work--just not as breath-takingly as in the original experiment. Prospects Suppose a few fishermen find they can vastly increase the productivity of their fishing grounds, at trivial cost. How long do you suppose it would take for others to learn from them, and still others to learn from them? If it works, the fishermen will be unstoppable. And along the way, they will feed the world more abundantly than every before, indeed more abundantly than has been dreamed! The long term prospects are staggering. Three quarters of the Earth is ocean, yet the ocean is home to only one-tenth of the Earth's photosynthesis, the first step in the production of all food. (See "Nobel Trees.") That leaves some room for improvement. How much? There is room for a 27-fold improvement in the ocean's productivity per unit area! This is intriguingly close to the 30 to 40-fold increase in chlorophyll noted by the iron experimenters. Implication for activists Phytoplankton have an interest in iron. Wee beasties have an interest in phytoplankton. Fish have an interest in wee beasties. Fishermen have an interest in fish. Where do you fit in this chain? What do you have an interest in? You have an interest in cheaper food! More abundant fish means cheaper food! Help feed yourself: tell a fisherman about iron fertilization! (Help feed me; include a plug for Quackgrass Press.) Oh, and don't worry about Martin's ice age forecast. Variations in the atmospheric CO2 level have little impact on global temperatures, which are mainly set by solar activity. Besides, if the possibility of falling CO2 worries you, we could always burn coal, oil and natural gas a little faster! (See outside links) _______ MORE! Some coastal waters are iron deficient, and thus candidates for iron fertilization--in particular the waters off Big Sur in California, practically next door to a commercial fishery! How convenient! Read CNN's story about it. (Added July 2/98) Here's another account of the spectacular Galapagos experiment. It has the usual global warming spin, but you can ignore that. (Added July 2/98) (Read Richard Monastersky's article: "Iron vs. the Greenhouse," Science News, vol. 148, September 30, 1995. It's delightful! In case you're reading this on paper, the article is online at http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/iron/iron.html. If you hear of any commercial or individual experiments in iron fertilization, tell me and I'll report them here. _______ Quackgrass Press will use all the help it gets. E-gold is the easiest help to give! e-gold Amount of help (US$) ____________________ Help QP instantly! (If you don't know e-gold, find out here.) If you prefer to help by cheque, here's how! _______ Quackgrass Home Quackgrass Articles Quackgrass Roots Deep Thinkers Email: qgrass at quackgrass.com ©1996, 1997 by Michael Miller