GEO ENGINEERING: Iron Fertilization and its Dangers to the Oceans
- Category: Blog
- Posted on 18-08-2023
Iron fertilization is a geoengineering technique where iron is added (dumped) to certain regions in the ocean to stimulate phytoplankton growth.The idea to use the microscopic phytoplankton as a carbon offset mechanism due to their use of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in photosynthesis which makes them perfect absorbents of CO2 from the atmosphere as underwater carbon sinks. By promoting their growth through iron addition, it is theorized that they could absorb significant amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere, thus mitigating climate change effects. While this idea in theory is noble as a mitigation strategy, iron fertilization presents a lot of potential danger especially with the limited knowledge that we have on the long term effects of this process on the world’s oceans. Is it a pendulum that shall conserve with one swing and immediately slash and destroy with another?
