The Green Report: Planet, heal thyself

Channelling cold, nutrient-rich water from the deep ocean to the nutrient-poor surface could “help the planet heal itself”

3 November 2007

The Globe and Mail

SEA STRAWS AND CO2

THE NEWS James Lovelock is best known for his “Gaia hypothesis” – the idea that the Earth, like any living organism, stays fit through a complex system of checks and balances. But global warming may have thrown that system out of whack. Which is why the Cornwall-based scientist now suggests suspending gigantic tubes in the sea. Channelling cold, nutrient-rich water from the deep ocean to the nutrient-poor surface could “help the planet heal itself,” he says, by fertilizing algae that would soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow.

THE BUZZ Opponents have many beefs. For one, huge blooms of algae could elbow aside other small organisms and disrupt the food chain. And this scheme might actually worsen global warming by bringing dissolved carbon dioxide from the deep ocean to the surface. It could also disrupt key ocean currents.

THE BOTTOM LINE Nobody really knows what might happen if tubes start cycling water from the ocean deeps – except that this could potentially remove more than 500 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This may prove argument enough for Sir Richard Branson, who is considering investing in the idea.

SPYING FROM SPACE

THE NEWS The confessional model doesn’t do the best job of regulating climate sins. So instead of counting on polluters to report their own emissions, York University’s Brendan Quine has developed a sneaky pollution spy – a tiny gadget that works in space. Called the Argus microspectrometer, it picks up on the chemical signatures of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that cause global warming. It will launch into orbit next month on board a microsatellite test-driving tiny instruments.

THE BUZZ Most tools sent into space cost millions and wind up as nothing more than pollution themselves: giant pieces of obsolete trash orbiting the Earth. Argus costs about $75,000 and can fit in the palm of your hand – making it a cost-effective example of “sustainable space instrumentation.”

THE BOTTOM LINE “In Canada, we are fond of suggesting that pollution that causes reductions in air quality is transported from the United States, but is this actually true? We aim to look at this problem,” Prof. Quine says. Ultimately, Argus will create better models of pollution distribution, as well as develop a monitoring and detection system to track where it comes from.

MINING THE MOON

THE NEWS Rasmus Karlsson, of Sweden’s University of Lund, also sees space as the key to a sustainable future – not for tracking industrial polluters on Earth, but because it might provide the resources for a second industrial revolution. As the political scientist argues in the latest issue of the International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development, space would provide unlimited room for toxic dumping and access to unfiltered solar energy and on the moon we may be able to mine for raw materials.

THE BUZZ The idea of colonizing space was in vogue half a century ago (think George Jetson), but has since been dismissed as prohibitively expensive, “a romantic dream of the past,” Mr. Karlsson says. But he argues that green thinkers tend to be either ecologists or environmentalists – and both approaches are flawed: Ecologists believe that the only cure for the planet is a return to subsistence living, which doesn’t appeal to most of us and is probably unenforceable; environmentalists believe that salvation lies in using technology to lighten (but not erase) our footprint, which so far has proved an inadequate fix.

THE BOTTOM LINE By looking beyond Mother Earth, we could have our cake and eat it too. As Mr. Karlsson puts it: “Space industrialization may eventually turn out to be the only possible way of maintaining infinite growth in what otherwise would be a finite system.”

MERCURY FALLING

THE NEWS Will we ever be able to sauté fresh perch again? Scientists have long known that mercury from coal-fired plants and metal smelters can end up on our dinner plates – but they weren’t sure if toxins in freshwater fish came from current pollution or from old contaminants leaching from soil and sand into lake water. To solve this puzzle, researchers from a dozen institutions in the U.S. and Canada added large amounts of a signature form of mercury, called an isotope, to an isolated lake in Northwestern Ontario. Then they traced how long it took for the isotope to wind up in the food chain. The result: Three years.

THE BUZZ This study is good news for both environmentalists and gourmands. It shows that mercury levels in fish could fall within a few years if new inputs are curbed. But industry may be less chuffed, since this research also confirms that centuries of smokestacks are less to blame for toxins in fish than dumping going on right now.

THE BOTTOM LINE Trent University’s Holger Hintelman, one of the researchers who conducted this study, says that “we can certainly make fish safer for consumption” within a few years.

Zoe Cormier is a science writer based in London. Her column will appear every other week in Focus.