I’m following with great interest a voyage by the German polar research vessel Polarstern to the Antarctic to conduct an experiment in “ocean fertilization” and the controversy over the project.
Some organisations are highly concerned about the experiment and feel it’s in breach of international agreements to protect biodiversity:
Background from the opponents, the ETC or “Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration
The project is a German-Indian venture. There’s more information in English on the website of the National Institute of Oceanography.
Project to fertilize the ocean with iron
I haven’t found much on this on the AWI website, that’s Germany’s Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research. I’ll try to contact them and follow this story up.
The trouble is a lot of people are very concerned about interfering with the oceans in this way without knowing the likely consequences. The idea is that the iron will lead to a bloom of algae, which will ultimately sequester Co2. But it is not without risk.
The ETC cites an online article on the 2008 Convention on Biodiversity meeting here in Bonn, Germany,and the strong concerns documented their about iron fertilization.
media coverage of CBD view, May 2008
If you have strong views on this or links to further information on the issue, I’d be pleased to hear them.

That’s a quote from David Barber, an Arctic climatologist at the University of Manitoba, speaking to IPS at the International Arctic Change conference in Quebec, Canada.
Read the whole article here
He thinks the Arctic will be ice-free in summer by 2015. And he’s not alone in thinking that.
Even the worst-case scenarios looked at by the IPCC didn’t consider that possibility for another 50 to 70 years.

The latest NASA satellite data also indicates continuing rapid ice melt. More than 2 trillion tons of LAND ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, more than half of it in Greenland. This is all based on measurements of ice weight by NASA’S GRACE satellite. More figures will be released in San Francisco later today, at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco.
AGU website with more info
You’d think hard evidence like that using the best technology we have would convince even the staunchest sceptics and provoke action. I often tend to think it will. Normally I say I’m a born optimist. But is it optmistic to think people will be convinced by potentially catastrophic data?
That’s a question for the philosophers.
Meanwhile the World Meteorological Organization has said the past 12 months have been cooler than previous years, but longer-term trends show the world is still warming because of climate change. The MTO explain the slight dip in temperature by a La Nina event. And the organisation is concerned about the ice in the Arctic Sea having dropped to its second-lowest level during the melt season since satellite measurements began in 1979.
More on the WMO website
So in the light of all that, what do you make of the outcome of the Poznan conference and the EU’s latest climate of climate measures?

(Thanks to Erika Nagae, Climate Change College ambassador from the UK, for the pic).

There would be plenty of issues to comment on —
Ice shelf breaking off in the Antarctic, although it’s winter there – controversy over German government’s climate protection packages – EU gets into energy-saving light bulbs – floods and storms in different parts of the world – but your blogger is heading off to a conference at Stanford University in the USA. (Including: Energy, Climate and How Societies can/will/have to adapt to change).
That will be followed by some holidays until around July 21st.If there’s anything of interest, internet access and work withdrawal systems leading to some unscheduled blog entries in the meantime – I’ll keep you posted!
Otherwise, tune in to Living Planet
The planet’s best radio environment show?
On Thurs.July 3rd, there will be a feature on methane and climate change, the third part of the Alaska Climate Change College series.
‘Bye for now – and try to keep the air-conditioning off!

The Arctic made its way into the headlines again at the end of last week, when the five Arctic coastal nations met in Greenland to discuss sovereignty over the Arctic seabed.
Denmark, Norway, Russia, Canada and the United States are the countries concerned. Wouldn’t it be great if they were negotiating on who could do the most to protect this unique and fragile area? Of course what they are actually concerned about is who will have access to natural resources – for instance the right to drill for oil once the seabed becomes more easily accessible because global warming is melting the ice.

(The airport at Alaska’s oil centre, Prudhoe Bay).

The environmental groups were not invited to the meeting. As you might expect, most of them are concerned about the rush to exploit the Arctic further as soon as possible. One suggestion is to have a treaty similar to that regulating the Antarctic, which bans military activity and mineral mining, but this was rejected by the “Arctic 5”. Greenpeace Nordic campaigner Lindsay Keenan put the bizarre situation in a nutshell when he told Reuters “they are going to use the law of the sea to carve up the raw materials, but they are ignoring the law of common sense. These are the same fossil fuels that are driving climate change in the first place”. Good point Mr. Keenan. Greenpeace points out that the world already has four times more fossil fuel reserves than it can afford to burn.