Tales of optimism - and concern - for planet Earth

First to all of you who participate in Contrary Brin's lively and very smart comment community...one of the oldest and best on the web... see a housekeeping comment below.

Ever since I wrote Earth, way back in 1989, I’ve long held we should emulate some of nature’s own processes and help her to ameliorate the harm we’ve done with our ignorance and adolescent greed -- including now the notion of a worldwide campaign to ‘plant a Trillion Trees.'  Does it count for my predictive tally that a Trillion Trees Campaign was later proposed in 2011? Or that the World Economic Forum in Davos endorsed it in 2020?

But let’s correlate that with something in the news about geoengineering. If it is acceptable to help the planet by planting billions of trees, how is tree planting any different inherently than proposed efforts to stir bottom sediments into fast ocean currents, thus fertilizing them and bringing alive some of the 70% of the oceans that are ‘deserts' almost barren of visible life?

This could exactly emulate how Mother Gaia creates the vast life-fecundity off the Grand Banks or Chile or South Africa, that both feeds hundreds of millions and pulls carbon from the air.

So far, there have been no experiments yet in bottom stirring – well after all, Earth is set in 2038. A cruder but apparently effective method that’s been tried with promising results has been to add iron dust to some currents, always with the result of stimulating bursts of phytoplankton. followed by increased fish populations. Alas, the other result is always howls of “arrogant geoengineering!” and “this distracts us from reducing carbon emissions!” (No, it does not. Nor have we ever seen ‘toxic blooms.')

The idea is at last being taken seriously. “Is ‘hacking’ the ocean a climate change solution? U.S. experts endorse research on carbon removal strategies.”

Now a new twist. Apparently, fresh calculations suggest that whale poop used to serve this function, before humanity darn near drove the great beasts extinct. (Want irony? Whales were saved - in the barest nick of time - by the arrival of fossil fuels, which ended commercial greed for whale oil.) When whale populations plummeted, so did phytoplankton and krill populations across vast regions.

“In 1990, the oceanographer John Martin proposed that the Southern Ocean is starved of iron, and that deliberately seeding its waters with the nutrient would allow phytoplankton to grow. The blooming plankton would soak up carbon dioxide, Martin argued, and cool the planet and slow the pace of global warming. Researchers have since tested this idea in 13 experiments, adding iron to small stretches of the Southern and Pacific Oceans and showing that plankton do indeed flourish in response.

“Such iron-fertilization experiments have typically been billed as acts of geo-engineering—deliberate attempts to alter Earth’s climate. But Savoca and his colleagues think that the same approach could be used for conservation. Adding iron to waters where krill and whales still exist could push the sputtering food cycle into higher gear, making it possible for whales to rebound at numbers closer to their historical highs. “We’d be re-wilding a barren land by plowing in compost, and the whole system would recuperate,” says one oceanographer.

Some of these ideas are explored in Hacking Planet Earth: How Geoengineering can help us reimagine the future, by Thomas M. Kostigen, which delves into the technologies that may help tackle climate change.

Though you could do worse than read Earth… and, of course, my sci fi about … whales.

Oh, speaking of Earth, in that novel, I speculated about different mineral forms of perovskite that make up most of the mantle below the crust and above the core. Perovskites are among the highest temperature superconductors, especially at high pressures. Now comes news of discovery (within the lattice of a diamond) of a new mineral form that’s nicknamed “Dave.” (Named for geophysicist Ho-kwang (Dave) Mao.)

== Climate Change ==

As climate ructions pour ever-more blatant pummelings upon us and Denialist cultists seek refuge in doomer incantations, notable is the detailed, sensible nerdiness of Bill Gates' book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The solutions we have and the breakthroughs we need (the audiobook version is read by Wil Wheaton.) The book is well organized, easy to follow, and lays out all the issues in a very clear way.

It's mostly about economics - for each different type of greenhouse gas emissions (and there are many), what is the cost of reducing those emissions, expressed in terms of the impact on an average consumer or family. Gates talks about the impact on transportation, agriculture, manufacturing, power generation and so on. He also summarizes what technological innovations are needed to bring the cost down.

But of course, almost all of our enlightenment problem solving systems are currently clogged by the great big, worldwide putsch to re-establish varied forms of feudalism.

== A changing climate ==

Micro-plastic fragments swirling in the atmosphere may be influencing the climate - scattering and absorbing sunlight. 

The American bumblebee has vanished from eight U.S. states - and could now qualify for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

UCSD researchers have identified a correlation between extreme heat in low income countries and increased incidence of stillbirths and preterm births. 

And.. rising waters: The volume of the downpour during one hour in Zhengzhou, which flooded subways and killed scores of people, exceeded anything in 5,000 years of recorded Chinese history. Hundreds were killed in Germany by rivers surging to levels not seen in 500 or even 1,000 years. And for the first time, temperatures hit 121 degrees Fahrenheit in the normally cool climes of Canada, while it’s snowing in Brazil. 

The western drought is unprecedented. The fit is hitting the shan. And in the southeastern US, which will experience the nation's guaranteed worst outcomes, from malaria to the worst loss of land to rising waters... denialism is becoming frantic. Open war vs. all fact professions. Plus frenzied "prepper-survivalist" notions of "If then end's a-comin' then bring it!"

Sure, it could lead to Holnism, (from The Postman.) But what's scariest is something I predicted back in the 1980s and 1990s... that all of this will lead to literal millennialism. A mania in the early 2030s around the supposed 2000th Easter. It will happen, so we better sane-up before that.

What can you do? Well some of you might consider: above and beyond mere politics… if you seriously want to help civilization be resilient against shocks the future might bring, consider (in the U.S.) taking training for CERT – your local Community Emergency Response Team. It’s a really interesting and fun 20 hour course given by your local fire department and you get cool green equipment and a badge! And once a decade maybe some light duties to help keep your family and neighbors safe. 

Then there is this detailed interview I gave about half a dozen ways that small investments could make us much more resilient... what we should have done... and can still do... to help our nations, civilization and families be more robust against the batterings of fate. 

== A twin Earth? ==

Earth has been digitized! A new virtual model of our planet - Digital Twin Earth - will use advanced AI algorithms and the latest data and images from earth-observation satellites to help researchers better understand the problems of climate change. This model will simulate the effects of natural, dynamic processes and human activities on the atmosphere, ice sheets, oceans, and ecosystems of earth.

Meanwhile... NASA's newest Landsat satellite has just sent back its first crystal-clear photos of planet Earth, showing our planet's changing landscapes, providing critical data to help us better understand climate change, and monitor threats from wildfires and coastal erosion.

Knowledge is power. One step toward climate accountability: Climate Trace compiles satellite observations to monitor global emissions from agricultural, manufacturing, transportation, and oil and gas extraction sectors. For instance, a snapshot of the CO2 emissions of the United States appears at right.

== A story of resources ==

An optimistic future is possible, ironically more than ever in these dolorous and insipidly pessimistic times, as solutions keep rising…. if only we can gather the collective and individual will to use them. As described in Peter Diamandis’s book Abundance: The Future is Better than you think. Take this very recent example from Peter’s newsletter:

“This past year, the world’s biggest jeweler Pandora announced it will cease to sell all mined diamonds (which are scarce and fraught with environmental and human rights abuses), and switch exclusively to selling lab-made diamonds, which can be abundant and low cost—produced from water, methane, and electricity.”

There are few oligarchic-monopolistic conspiracies more evil than the DeBeers diamond cartel. So this is potentially great news, brought to you by advancing technology.

Though he starts with the story of aluminum.

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Housekeeping note. I'll switch back to allowing anonymous comments for just a few days, to see if any of the regulars in our comment community were locked out, when I switched to requiring a Google sign in. If that requirement locked you out, this is your chance to speak up. But the spam bucket was empty, last I checked. So we're likely to make the change permanent.

Geoengineering and Climate Change

A  National Academy of Sciences panel said that, with proper governance and other safeguards,  we should commence more research on geoengineering — technologies that might let himanity deliberately intervene in nature to counter climate change.  With the planet facing potentially severe impacts from global warming in coming decades, drastically reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases was by far the best way to mitigate the effects of a warming planet. But society would be foolish not to at least carefully commence small scale experiments looking into other means of reducing the net harm.

Geoengineering options generally fall into two categories: capturing and storing some of the carbon dioxide that has already been emitted, so that the atmosphere traps less heat, or reflecting more sunlight away from the earth so there is less heat to start with.

Opponents of geoengineering have long argued that even conducting research on the subject presents a moral hazard that could distract society from the necessary task of reducing the emissions that are causing warming in the first place.

I have long held that this reflex reveals  a monomaniacal insanity, almost 1% as bad as the insanity of the climate denialist cult.  (Yes, that insane.)   Such zero-sum, "don't-negotiate" thinking will doom us all, whether it comes (mostly) from the right or else (in this case) from the left.  We need to remember that a war has many fronts.  This one -- against wastrel stupidity and short-sightedness -- has many fronts.

(PS... the one geoengineering method with the best promise of simply emulating what nature does, herself, to remove CO2 in all-natural ways, is ocean fertilization.  Preliminary results have been all-good and with zero substantial ore verifiably measurable bad outcomes. It is inherently stoppable -- unlike some of the scary proposals to inject aerosals into the upper atmosphere.  Moreover, ocean fertilization offers a possible side benefit of richer fisheries. Experiments in this method are self-limiting and hence should continue, or be encouraged -- under very close supervision.)

== Burden of Proof ==

American scientists and general public have widely differing views about certain scientific issues, as per a recent survey. Climate change and genetically altered food are the two subjects in which prominent differences can be observed.

Cause and effect tend to be murky in elastic, multivariable and non-linear systems.  The Denialist Cult uses this relentlessly to show that the observed correlations between theory and observation are still rough and hence "there's doubt"... leading thereupon to the howler... that we should do nothing till the correlations become perfect.

I have learned not to go sumo with them over correlations graphs. It is far more effective to show that they are being profoundly and stunningly illogical, demanding "more research" while their side has sabotaged climate investigators at every turn, canceling satellites, slashing atmospherics budgets and ordering NASA and NOAA not to look Earthward. At intervals, the Bush Administration, various GOP-controlled Congressional committees, and most recently the State of Florida have banned discussion of these topics and even forbidden mention of "climate" or "rising seas"... a special irony in Florida, which is already suffering from rising seas.

Those actions -- and countless more -- show they want the obscurity and doubt. It is not a flaw, but a feature. Hence the War on Science.

But here is where you can and must corner them.It is in the matter of Burden of Proof that you'll find the weak point in the incantations that they rely on, concocted at Heritage and AEI and Fox, at the behest of coal barons and petro-sheiks. Dig this well, and learn how to hammer it home:

When a scientific field has competitively settled on a Standard Model, that SM is not always right!  But it is usually right -- to the limits of last year's instrumentation. 

While the Standard Model in any field normally improves incrementally, under relentless competitive pressure by young upstart scientists, outsiders are free to try to topple the whole SM... but thos outsiders and upstarts bear the burden of proof. The professionals are obliged to take note of such proof... but they are not obliged to prove the SM over and over and over again to politically propelled critics. They get plenty of challenges already, from their own grad students.

Yes, some of you will twist what I just said into sounding like elitism and appealing to authority.  Bull. If that is your reflex then you simply do not understand what I just said.  You do not understand science -- the most vibrantly competitive and productive and honest field of endeavor our species ever invented. Ingrates shrug off all the ways they have benefited from these traits of science, and that's fine. It's a free country and -- unlike all the priesthoods of the past -- scientists don't demand worship. But if you cannot grasp your burden of proof, when decrying some field's Standard Model -- well-tested and credited by women and men who are verifiably vastly smarter than you are, then all you are being is a yammer-puss.

Put it in stark terms. A society that ignores a major scientific model, backed by 97% of the smart men and women who turned the old, joke of a 4 hour weather forecast into a 10 DAY miracle is clearly a very stupid society.

Followup in the news: As illustrated by the recent Ebola outbreak, global air travel has made it far easier for disease to spread. But climate change, which is shuffling habitable zones for pathogen-carrying animals, is poised to make future outbreaks of infectious diseases such as Ebola, H1N1 and TB worse, and more frequent.  

One more of a myriad things for which members -- and especially the promoters -- of the Denialist Cult will be held accountable, beyond "just" the inundation of coastal lands and cities. 

When the tort suits are settled, around 2080, no one named Koch or Murdoch will own even a dime.

== Technology Snippets ==

Exciting things at UCSD, which has been named the manager and analysis center for the XPRIZE Tricorder Challenge.  “Of course, the tricorder in Star Trek was originally fantasy, a wonderful bit of science fiction,” but the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE is a 3.5-year global competition that will award $10 million to teams that develop a consumer-friendly device capable of diagnosing a set of 15 conditions and capturing metrics for health.

Back in the 1980s I worked on a system that would do both 3D TV and 3D manufacturing using intersecting laser beams, rather than the fake-cludged methods used today -- writing 2D images on a screen, to be interpolated by glasses or perspective… or making 3D objects by writing successive, rising or descending layers of 2D solids on a platform. Now, at last, we are seeing some alternative ideas. In one case, high intensity converging light causes plasma emission from spots on mid air.

Here at the NIAC conference I've just seen another implementation of the "moving 2D table" approach, a rapidly rising and falling table gets written-on by a laser, producing a sort of 3D effect. 

Such visionary leadership from the New York Times of 1985!  “The limitations come from what people actually do with computers, as opposed to what the marketers expect them to do. On the whole, people don't want to lug a computer with them to the beach or on a train to while away hours they would rather spend reading the sports or business section of the newspaper. Somehow, the microcomputer industry has assumed that everyone would love to have a keyboard grafted on as an extension of their fingers. It just is not so.”  Where are Clarke’s Three Laws when you need em?

Can the Ocean solve the sky’s problems? Can youth “cure” old age?

== Are the only answers puritanism and efficiency? ==

Amid all the sturm und drang over climate change, and whether to try “geo-engineering” or ban even discussing such alternatives, it seems that polemics had trumped science. Leaving "progress" to be done in a fly-by-night fashion. Which brings us to --

Has ocean fertilization been proved? Early indications may be spectacular. 

I've long favored careful experiments in this one kind of "geo-engineering," which simply replicates nature by providing missing elements to some of the vast (90%) of ocean zones that are nutrient poor deserts, almost devoid of life. A senseless enviro-puritan reflex has blocked simple, controllable experiments, which are inherently retractable -- and which I portrayed way back in EARTH (1989). Frustrated by this eco-prudity, a Native American tribe in British Columbia financed the distribution of 120 tons of iron sulfate into the northeast Pacific, in 2012, hoping to stimulate a phytoplankton bloom which in turn would provide ample food for baby salmon.

That is what appears to have happened, on a stunning scale, starting with the expected plankton bloom. The following year - (according to Robert Zubrin, whose notoriety comes from promoting Mars colonization) - "the number of salmon caught in the northeast Pacific more than quadrupled, going from 50 million to 226 million. In the Fraser River, which only once before in history had a salmon run greater than 25 million fish (about 45 million in 2010), the number of salmon increased to 72 million."

These numbers appear to be confirmed … though I welcome participatory research from you folks! (Preliminary indications sometimes prove to be flat-out wrong, upon closer examination.) Please help our group mind to follow up on this! If any cause-effect can be supported, it would seem to offer very strong reason to pursue further experiments in this domain, which promise better side effects than any other palliative measure (e.g. more food from vitalized fisheries) while pulling carbon from the air.

This is an area where moderate folks need to step up, instead of leaving a crucial scientific and ecological matter to be raved-over by fanatics of all sides. Take this article in the conservative National Review, where Zubrin offers up quotations from enviro-obstinates that reveal embarrassing political and mental obduracy on the farthest-left. Only also know this, that Rob Zubrin cherry-picked these quotations, which are extrema from a spectrum wherein most environmentalists are in-fact reasonable people. Rob is a vigorous and interesting fellow -- I like him -- but also a rigidly dogmatic person of the very far-right, which comes out in his article, veering into realms of denialist crackpottery.

Working your way through it will be a test of your ability to pluck (many) pearls from (a lot of) manure. Learn to do that… and accept that similar ratios sometimes are seen on the other side.

Must this always be our fate? Having to pick our way through an opinion-minefield, between opposing, simplistic militancies? 

A pragmatically progressive civilization would shrug off both eco-puritans and fanatical climate denialists and seek precious positive-sum opportunities. We need to explore this one -- this potential win-win of ocean enhancement -- swiftly and carefully. 

Or else it will be done in the dead of night, from boats that dump "fertilizer" without oversight or scientific supervision.

Noteworthy is this parallel - 10,000 years ago we learned to irrigate and make deserts bloom with crops. Add water to land, and life burgeons… but add it WRONG and you poison  the land! As happened to the Fertile Crescent, which irrigators un-knowingly covered with salts, transforming paradise into desert. 

What irrigation requires - we learned painfully across millennia - is drainage to ensure that the water you are adding will ALSO wash salts away.  That's the difference between the Euphrates Valley, which was choked by poor drainage, and the Ganges and Nile which are still fertile after 5000 years of irrigation.

The way to look at ocean-fertiization is the you are doing the inverse of irrigation. You are adding "land" to water in the form of nutrients.  In fact, it's been happening for quite some time and lessons have been learned. Agricultural runoff from modern farming "feeds" life in the sea, all right. When it spills into vigorous ocean currents, there's no visible harm. But when there's inadequate oxygen and circulation, you get lethal algae blooms. The Black Sea is a horror story: virtually dead. Parts of the Caribbean and the Mediterranean are also stagnant and in trouble, choking on our effluents.

But fertilize into very strong currents that are rich in Oxygen? That is exactly how upwellings along the Chilean coast or the Grand Banks engender the world's greatest fisheries. Fertilizing other strong currents would be like well-drained irrigation. It could work, if carefully watched.  

At least, that is a reasonable interpretation of all that we can see. Why not do the validation experiments scientifically and openly, instead of leaving this to fly-by-nighters?

Don't be a puritan of either dogmatic extreme.  Be cautiously curious. Be scientific.

== Can innovation help? ==

Folks have been commenting on whether we will have "solar roads." I find the notion silly. No place has more wear and tear than a road surface. Come on people.

The place to put massive numbers of solar panels, when we truly have the next economy of scale breakthrough, is as roofs over the California Aqueduct. There is no place as perfect. Nearly total sun. Transmission lines have an existing right of way, and savings from evaporation would nearly pay for it all. This has been done for a canal in the state of Gujarat in India (pictured).

== Bio wonders! ==

It sounds like something out of a comic book or a science fiction movie – the first report of a successful biological laser based on a single, living cell. The fan who wrote to tell me about this commented: "It only took thirty-one years, but Culla's eyes in Sundiver are becoming a reality."

Okay! I'm not sure this counts for full points in the Predictions Registry. But partial credit is fine… for now.

Meanwhile…

Scientists have made living organisms that use SIX nucleotides - the familiar GATC… plus X and Y. They need to be fed special X & Y bearing foods or they die. Many in the press are fretting this is bad news for keeping scientific progress accountable...

...when in fact it is the very opposite!  This is absolutely terrific news! If this pans out, it means we'll be able to keep a much tighter rein on our laboratory creations by creating lines of organisms that absolutely rely upon supplies of nutrients that cannot get, outside of the lab. Why is it that no one ever sees the good side of discoveries?

Oh, then there is this: is cancer about to be knocked down several notches?

== Icky-scary… yet intriguing! ==

Only, here’s the ickiest-scariest science news of the month: "New studies show that young blood reverses effects of aging when put into older mice." Argh, the images this brings to mind!! Creepy old billionaires craving the revitalizing blood of pre-teenagers!

Of course it doesn't have to go Hollywood. I am about to be awarded my ten-gallon hat when I reach my 80th blood donation and young people could get college money in exchange for donating five times a year, without the slightest harm. This might be a lot less scary than I fear. In fact, it may lead to great things.

But at first sight, it is a really trashy sci fi flick scenario, come true! (Note countries with a skewed old-to-young ratio might be in trouble.)

In fact, it just gets creepier! Note HOW the researchers got this result. By co-joining the old and young circulatory systems for weeks! Apparently just a pint or two doesn't do it. You need access to the younger creature's kidneys! And it isn't just the oldster getting "younger"... the youngster gets OLDER!

"But for the young mice, getting old blood was a definite setback. When conjoined to an older mouse, the creation of new cells in the young mouse slowed. Old blood seemed to cause premature aging."

Okay, okay, we are back in really scary territory. The only way this won't go very badly is if zillionaires live in The Transparent Society. I mean it. Without an open world, old Struldbrugs will be sending out minions and snatching young people off the streets.

Oh, and science. Pray this news is analyzed and replicated artificially and cheaply, real soon. I'd like that.

== Pertinent Miscellany ==

Since the late 1980s, teen pregnancy rates dropped 51 percent by 2010 and the teen abortion rate declined 66 percent and the teen birthrate declined 44 decreased. Teen pregnancy rates declined in all 50 states. New Mexico had the highest teen pregnancy rate of 80 per 1,000 women, followed by Mississippi at 76 per 1,000 women and Texas at 73 per 1,000 women; while the lowest rate was in New Hampshire with 28 per 1,000 women, Vermont at 32 per 1,000 women and Minnesota at 36. (Um... who is in a position to lecture us, morally?)

A new type of 3D printer developed by Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research Pittsburgh can turn raw wool and wool blend yarns into fabric objects that people might enjoy touching.

In the category of I Kid You Not... Argentina’s INTA governmental research body has developed cow backpacks that use a tube from the cattle's rumen leading to a bag, to trap the methane they produce in order to turn it into green energy. You'd think this a joke, till you realize its 250 liters of methane a day. Question. At some point do they float away? Or by accident rocket away?

Google wants to create a fully, 100 percent self-driving vehicle — something that needs no human being at the steering wheel — the company is building a car without a steering wheel. 100 cars will be in the first run. Google X -- the inventor's central within the company that is (among other things) creating balloon-borne internet broadband hubs -- has "started developing prototype vehicles that actually are built from the ground up to be fully self-driving." says a lead developer at Google X, Chris Umson, working with Dmitri Dolgov. The car has a steel frame to protect passengers, but the front face is made of a soft foam that causes less damage in an accident. It'll go no faster than 25 mph, and focuses on city street driving.

Sven Beiker, a professor at Stanford's Center for Automotive Research, doesn't think he's going to see a fully self-driving car in his professional lifetime. "Right now in, the year 2014, we're just making the steps towards partial automation. That means the driver still needs to be in the loop," he says.

Google engineers have developed a simulated quantum computer called Quantum Computing Playground that allows you to write, run, and debug software using quantum algorithms.

The use of C60 (fullerene) nanorods, which have unique optoelectronic properties, including high electron mobility, photosensitivity, and conductivity, could make possible low-cost medical and security cameras that would empower even cell phones or Penny Cams, or micro probes inside the body.

Ocean Fertilization redux… plus the politics of science

My last posting about Climate Change remediation got a lot of attention, positive and negative,  so let me emphasize: I do not consider any form of "geoengineering" to be a substitute for responsibly investing in energy efficiency and finding ways to maintain a great civilization without ruining our planet. Even if a few such methods are found that work well, without crackpot flaws and/or gruesome side effects, that won't let us off the hook from our shared and individual responsibilities, which include seeking alternate, sustainable forms of energy to replace the irresponsible spewing of greenhouse pollutants into our atmosphere. Those who have been lured into participating in a War on Science must be introduced to its value. But the cynical men who are financing this cult are enemies of humankind.

Only now… some additional insights. A variant on ocean fertilization has been proposed by my friend William Calvin, one of the smartest guys I know. Bill agrees with me that the best approach for geoengineering and partial remediation of carbon driven climate change would be to emulate and enhance the method that Nature herself already uses, to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere.  That means doing it via natural processes at-sea, forming carbon rich solids and letting these settle as sediments to the ocean bottom.  (While, as a side-benefit, stimulating new fisheries.)  See Calvin's Proposal: Emergency 20-year Drawdown of Excess CO2 via Push-Pull  Ocean Pumps.

Earlier we discussed the drawbacks of the bludgeon-like initial attempts at ocean fertilization, that have created crude plankton blooms by dumping iron powder into currents.  We also saw that care must be taken to make sure that (as when arid land is irrigated) the new zones of fecundity must be "well-drained" like the Grand Banks and Chile, and unlike the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, where "fecundity" can translate into  a poisoned morass of algae and jellyfish.  My conclusion: if you want to emulate the main life-process that removes CO2 from the air, do it by lifting submerged nutrients to higher, sun-lit realms, exactly as Nature does it.  Several methods have been proposed and I showed a couple of them way back in in EARTH (1989).

Let me pause to add that there are non-living process that do the same thing, in parallel.  Even more effective at drawing down atmospheric CO2 is the weathering of continental rocks by the rain cycle, washing silicates to sea via river estuaries, reacting and combining with dissolved carbon and sealing them away in sediments without intervention by biology. (Indeed, this is the principal driver of the "Gala Balance" that makes a natural ocean world self-regulating.)  I have never seen any proposals to expand continental, river-carried weathering… though I imagine a lot of dust will go to sea if we continue to spread deserts… or if desertification results in nuclear war.

But let's get back to Bill Calvin's concept.  He starts with what I've been pushing… systems that emulate natural upwellings by bringing up nutrients from below, using either windmills or wave powered systems.  (Have a look: some are very clever: especially using 3000 abandoned oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.)

He then deals with a serious problem, that most of the CO2 sequestered by a plankton bloom does not either sink or feed fish, but simply returns to the air after the plankton dies.  Calvin solves this by having another windmill-powered tube situated down-current from the upwelling one.  This second one pumps the carbon rich surface water back down again.  I'll let him explain:

Calvin's push-pull pumps:  "An easy-to-visualize method to do push-pull pumps uses floating windmills. Long pipes hang 15 to 30 stories down into the slowly moving depths. One windmill operates traditionally, pulling deep water up to the surface.  The nutrients in this cold water create a sustained bloom of algae (and algae thrive in cooler water). The other windmill pump pushes the enriched surface water down to where it cannot resurface for millennia. Pumping down stores the carbon in the brand-new algae as well as canceling out whatever carbon dioxide was first pulled up from below the thermocline. That’s the first big payoff from going with push-pull pumps."

"Even more importantly, it sinks the 240x larger amounts of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from the feces and cell debris. (Algaculture throws out the dissolved part of their organic crop.) DOC ordinarily becomes carbon dioxide within a week or two and then escapes into the air as winds stir the surface layer. Stashing it as well is the second big step up in efficiency achieved by push-pull pumps."

These things merit discussion.  Do have a closer look.  Because reducing CO2 at the source will no longer suffice.  We have to push for that!  But it will take more.

See my article: Defining Climate "Deniers" and "Skeptics." Without any doubt it is possible to be a skeptic who helps science by critiquing the flaws in any standard model. Such skepticism, propelled by curiosity and the natural competitiveness of science (indeed, science is the most ferociously competitive of all human endeavors) is natural and wholesome.  Alas, 95% of those calling themselves "climate skeptics" do not fit this description.  Their stance is driven by political loyalties and participation in an ever-deepening War on Science and everything that it stands for. And the worst example of all is...

== Politics and Science ==

The Science Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives -- continuing its almost blemish-free record of jibbering inanity, with members from the majority party almost universally unqualified and propelled by fanatical dogmas.  Take Mississippi Republican Rep. Steven Palazzo, who chairs the Space Subcommittee. His revision of the Administration's NASA budget request would slash the requested Earth science budget by a third (from about $1.8 billion to $1.2 billion) next year.  This from the party that proclaims "we need more research!" in order to determine whether human activity is promoting climate change and global warming.

(This year's Fox-declared dogma is to backpedal and admit (at last) that major global warming is obviously taking place, but continuing to declare human causes to be "unproved." And further proclaiming that lemming-herd-like scientists are all cowardly-timid yelpers after teensy grants. Even though half of all climate researchers are doing great, earning nearly all of their funds from perfectly safe research into weather prediction, having accomplished the spectacular feat of transforming the old, two hour weather report into a ten day miracle. Geniuses, chivvied by their opposites.)

Keeping true to form, the targeted slashing of science continues. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which supports the development and commercialization of new energy technologies, would receive $50 million, $215 million — or 81 percent — less than what was enacted in fiscal 2013.

This is not the science-loving GOP of 1980, but some aberration that has sabotaged Earth science for twenty consistent years. Indeed, they several times tried to remove Earth observation and ocean/climate studies from the mission statements of both NASA and NOAA.  Can any modern person rationalize this?  Or convince himself/herself that this has anything to do with "conservatism" anymore?

Read also how the Space Subcommittee Republicans demand that funds be shifted away from asteroidal research, which offers the possibility of accessing vast wealth and resources, -- a new Gold-Platinum Rush in space -- while providing a useful intermediate mission for astronauts to develop deep space skills.  Instead they prefer an utterly pointless return to the sterile-useless-heavy Moon, and then armwave talk of a Mars Mission that this generation is nowhere near ready to even design.

Who - on Earth or anywhere - would try so hard to ALWAYS be wrong?

== Science Miscellany ==

Astronomers from 11 different institutions in the UK have joined forces to hunt for alien life, setting up a network to coordinate their activity. The UK SETI Research Network will fund research that considers new ways to find extraterrestrial intelligence. The group will also buy listening time on radio telescopes.

NASA image shows nearly ice-free Alaska on a clear day.

NASA seeks backyard astronomers to help chart asteroids.

A telescope for your eye: new contact lens allows user to switch between magnified and normal vision.

An interesting article reviewing the early days when the discoverers of pulsars first thought that the signals might be coming from Little Green Men.

Wearable computers for soldiers could stop deaths by friendly fire.

Cool images of sand reacting to sound at varied frequencies.

==And Finally==

Striking correlation between infection and mood disorders: Researchers have found that every third person who is diagnosed for the first time with a mood disorder had been admitted to hospital with an infection prior to the diagnosis. That notion adds another facet to the "hygiene hypothesis" that links a variety of autoimmune conditions to an inflammatory response caused by the loss of healthy bacteria in the gut.

Changes to the English language so subtle you don't notice; i.e. from "they started to walk" to "they started walking."

"Standard IQ tests are problematic on many levels — not least, because they do very little to tell us about the quality of our thinking. Looking to overcome this oversight, psychologist Keith Stanovich has started to work on the first-ever Rationality Quotient test." An interview that forges into deep territory, revealing just how difficult it is for humans to do the thing we are most proud-of.