What are the side effects?
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“I worry that the consequences of doing that would decrease the value of the things we value a whole lot.
One, increasing substantial emissions of GHG. That could happen, there are some models that suggest that could happen. That exacerbates the problem. Two, significant species decline of some commercial fishing species. That’s a problem: it hurts fishermen, a lot of people, the economy. Three, substantial modifications of biodiversity. That matters because people care about those things. They place a lot of value on them and in preventing them from being completely disrupted. So, to say that we are going to completely disrupt all that on a basis of a few models and small scale experiments that don’t test that hypothesis… I don’t think it is a bargain we should do.” |
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“There is no question about this. The most important negative effect is that as a result of fertilization, we generate gases such as nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas (GHG). So although one reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, one generates other GHGs. So the effect of this is that you don’t reduce the amount of warming at all. Another side effect is that you generate toxins substances as well – anyway they are naturally produced by some species - but here we artificially enhance the process via local high concentration of life. What could happen is that OIF can increase the release of amount of toxins.”
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“One thing is that we know that harmful algae blooms that are close to shore happen for different reasons and have different impacts damaging to marine life in the area. [There are] blooms in very shallow water where a lot of phytoplankton grow very quickly. Then they die as they have a short lifetime. They sink to the bottom, remineralise, which consumes oxygen. You then get a lack of oxygen and fish that need oxygen suffocate. That’s a form of harmful algae blooms that are very common in shallow areas.
A concern for increased phytoplankton bloom in the deep ocean [...] is that if you increase phytoplankton that would also lead to oxygen depletion to a sufficient degree that you would have a negative impact on whatever organisms are living there. Because it’s deeper, you are reminelirizing over much greater depth, so you are spreading the impact over a larger area. The question is if in the particular place where the organisms grow, that’s to say at the surface, are you having a considerable impact?” |
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“We have to be aware of this. We should reduce the probability that this will happen. And if it does happen, we must be ready to respond this question: do we mind [that there are side effects]?”
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