What are the commercial implications?
Are there legitimate interests in OIF research and experimentation?
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“There is a convergence in commercial and scientific interests when it comes to geoengineering in general. When it comes to OIF, I think the case is less strong. You have responsible experiments done by respectable scientists, such as the Lohafex experiments which are closely regulated, and then you have the so-called rogue geoengineer Russ George who is out there doing things, which don’t have very much scientific merit and are motivated by making money. Some of the respectable scientists involved in geoengineering research are horrified at Russ George because it brings them into disrepute.”
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“Science is not a monolithic thing. There isn’t 'no science' or 'more science'. There are different kinds of science. [...] Science that is asking an engineering question are hypotheses driven by 'does this prototype work?' [...] but, that is not the same kind of science as ‘how does the ocean work?’ And so, to say, yes, 'we need more science', and to have that coming from a private company investing money in trying to make money from this, I don’t buy it. And I question that. Yes, I question the profit motive.”
I live in Stanford, most of the other people around me are engaged in start-ups. They want to start their businesses. They want to start them as entrepreneurs to develop things that people need and will buy so that they can make money. And that’s great, and that’s how capitalism works and I have problems with capitalism but that’s how that system functions. “Now, when we start looking at that from the perspective of iron fertilization, understanding more fundamentally about how iron biogeochemistry works in the ocean is not a start-up idea. That is a ‘how does the ocean work?’ question. And we should do more science along those lines.” |
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“Without a doubt, the commercial angle was a central focus and a central objection [to OIF], coming from the fact that geoengineering itself was generally objected to by many folks. The commercial angle certainly didn't help. I’m not quite sure exactly if I understand why that happened. When you look at other things, we have no problem using commercial vehicles to fund wild forestries and many of the other carbon reductions are funded under CDM are commercial in nature. It was really this notion of geoengineering at scale and some of the things that were done early on [like Russ George] that put the wrong light and led to a high level of scrutiny. ”
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“The carbon market was seen as an acceptable way of reducing GHG emissions, because people don’t like rigid judicial frameworks. The EU Commission defended and promoted carbon market. [...] The only thing we managed to do is to attract malicious people that exploited the flaws of the carbon market. Now, nobody wants to respect the rules of the game and prices are too low. But we don’t have many choices: geoengineering or judicial framework.”
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“Ocean iron fertilization is a great place to look at that, the results of all the studies that have happened so far loudly and clearly say that this is not a technique that works, it’s not safe and that this is not a technique that we should follow. However, there are commercial interests who do not want to accept that and that have been organizing to keep the debate open. In the case of Climos, which was one of the private companies which wanted to get carbon credits, they ended up creating science venture to move ahead with open air experimentation and make that a norm. So they have commerce organizing science ultimately to get back to their business model. Again, this was the same that happened with Russ George and his claim about restoring salmon population in Canada and managed to raise money from the indigenous people.”
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