Dodo Harper abets 'oceans fertilization' crimes

 
A massive geo-engineering “experiment” in the Pacific west of Haida Gwaii encapsulates everything that is wrong with capitalism’s response to climate change. And it looks like Stephen Harper’s government is up to its angrily flared nostrils in the scam.
 
Haida communities in the Queen Charlotte Islands have been suffering due to the depletion of salmon. Salmon stocks have been ravaged by over-fishing, by pollution of the coastal rivers that are their spawning grounds, and by increasing acidification of the oceans due to climate change.
 
Enter California businessman Russ George with a fantastic scheme to clean the waters and restore the fish. The plan was to use “ocean fertilization” to create a widespread bloom of surface algae; the algae would absorb massive amounts of carbon dioxide (one of the greenhouse gases chiefly responsible for our warming planet) and sink to the ocean depths. At the same time it would provide a smorgasbord for salmon, encouraging a rise in the population. All that was required was dumping 100 tonnes of iron sulphate in international waters.
 
George sold his idea to the Old Massett village council in Haida Gwaii. The First Nations community invested $2.5 million and the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation was born. That investment would be recouped and more by carbon trading credits.
 
Win, win, win?
 
Ineffective and illegal
Except, of course that peer-reviewed research has shown that algae blooms, which occasionally occur naturally, do not actually reduce CO2 levels.
 
In experimental trials, artificial algae blooms have been shown to do more harm than good to complex ecosystems like ocean environments. In 2007, a major study at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science debunked the ocean fertilization idea. (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/uomr-nrd112907.php)
 
Not only is ocean fertilization ineffective, it is illegal. According to Professor Rosemary Reyfuse, an expert in International Law and the Law of the Sea at the University of New South Wales, Australia, “All States have an obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment and to ensure that all activities carried out under their jurisdiction and control, including marine scientific research and commercial ocean fertilization activities do not cause pollution. Ocean fertilization is ‘dumping’ which is essentially prohibited under the law of the sea. There is no point trying to ameliorate the effects of climate change by destroying the oceans—the very cradle of life on earth. Simply doing more and bigger of that which has already been demonstrated to be ineffective and potentially more harmful than good is counter-intuitive at best.”
 
In 2007, Russ George set out to prove his discredited theory in international waters off the Galapagos Islands. Scientists in the US raised an alarm and the government forbade him to sail under the US flag. The Ecuadorian government banned his ship from its ports. George decided to sail to the Canary Islands and try it there, until the Spanish government banned him as well.
 
His business, Planktos Corporation, went bust. Then he hooked up with John Disney, an economic development officer working out of the village of Old Massett.
 
Disney has been working on ways to cash in on the carbon trading market for years. In 2007, the Tyee newsmagazine reported that Disney was promoting a scheme to cut down alder forests along two major salmon breeding rivers in Haida Gwaii and re-seed them with bigger coniferous trees that would suck more CO2 out of the air.
 
There was no science to suggest that the plan would actually work, no way to quantify the improvement in order to calculate the carbon credits, and real concerns that the river ecosystems would be damaged. The plan ground to a halt.
 
I lack the space here for a full critique of the multi-billion dollar carbon trading system at work (and not working) around the globe. Suffice to say that these increasingly desperate schemes are designed to allow polluters to keep on spewing out greenhouse gases. In an overwhelming number of cases they are imposed on, and take advantage of indigenous populations like the people of Haida Gwaii.
 
Anything but address the “unthinkable” reality that we have to stop burning fossil fuels as soon as possible. That is doubly unthinkable for Harper’s Tories, who are devoted to pumping/digging/boiling/fracking/selling as much toxic sludge as our increasingly tired old planet can cough up.
 
Dodo Harper
But where the US, Ecuador and Spain have rightly refused to deal with George and Disney, it seems the Harper government has given them to go-ahead to break international law and violate UN rules.
 
John Disney told interviewers on CBC Radio’s As It Happens: “I’ve been in touch with many departments within the federal ministry. All I’m saying is that everyone from the Canadian Revenue Agency down to the National Research Council and Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Environment Canada–these people, they’ve all known about this.”
 
Russ George told Britain’s Guardian newspaper: “Canadian government people have been helping us. We’ve had workshops run where we’ve been taught how to use satellites resources by the Canadian space agency. is trying to ‘cost-share’ with us on certain aspects of the project. And we are expecting lots more support as we go forward.”
 
It is likely that the ship that did the illegal dumping flew the Canadian flag, and the load of iron sulphate originated in Alberta.
 
Since the story broke government agencies have refused comment.
 
At a recent UN sponsored Convention on Biodiversity meeting, Canada used its clout to block banning geo-engineering schemes. For that, along with the rest of its environmental policies, Harper’s government was awarded the Dodo award for having the world’s worst biodiversity record.
 
It remains to be seen whether Russ George and John Disney will be rewarded by the government with carbon credits. If so, they will have profited from crime—with profits coming at the expense of indigenous communities, the broader public, and the environment.