Climate Change

Just add iron? The great promise of ocean fertilisation

Guest Blogger: Radio New Zealand’s Our Changing World environment reporter, Alison Ballance

Last week I interviewed two NIWA scientists – Philip Boyd and Cliff Law – about ocean fertilisation, or iron enrichment. Most of us have heard about this ambitious plan, to help solve global warming by dumping large amounts of iron into the ocean, generating phytoplankton blooms which die and sink, effectively sequestering carbon in the deep ocean. I imagine most people thought as I did: that there is an international cabal of scientists and entrepreneurs who are pushing ahead with experiments to test out this grand theory despite concerns and fears about negative side effects, especially those related to unintended biological consequences.

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Help! I’m an eco-worrier

It’s confirmed, I am a bona fide eco-worrier. Having sailed through my first twenty years oblivious to my planet-destroying habits, I now spend much of my thinking time about how I can minimise my carbon footprint. The increasing onslaught of information about how to live lightly on this planet has me doing very complex equations in my head, which involves various trade offs e.g if I start a worm-farm & NOT use disposable cups to get my daily coffee, then I can travel in my car once a week.

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Kicking the Oil Habit

Guest Blogger: Jenny Campbell, Southland Branch Secretary

Right. Lets not beat around the bush. We are running out of oil. The bounteous supply we have enjoyed in the past 60 years is now dwindling to a few inaccessible pools buried deep within the earth or reservoirs set in environmentally sensitive areas.

We’re populating this earth at great speed - with some predictions estimating that in 2030 the population will be double that of our population in 1980. Do the maths, and you’ll realise that peak oil is hot on our heels.

It begs the question - how is our oil-addicted society we going to survive without it?

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Welcome to the F&B blog

Welcome to Forest & Bird’s weblog.  Like Forest & Bird itself, our weblog will touch on just about everything native and New Zealand:  our native plants, animals, our wilderness areas and environment, whether they are on land, in our lakes, rivers and oceans.

 

We welcome your thoughts and ideas about how we can all contribute to helping preserve our precious – and vulnerable – natural heritage.

 

 

Standby for opinion pieces, diary-style web-logs, videos of our projects and much, much more.  Just watch this space!