Can plankton help save the planet?

The New York Times published an article about us today. The article focuses on questions about plankton sequestration, ranging from profitability of carbon credits to effectiveness of iron fertilisation. These issues are clearly important, but in the end, it may not really matter.

Global warming is a problem that needs to be fought now - not later. And ocean sequestration is one of few strategies that can correct for our dirty past on a large scale. Even if iron fertilisation fails to lower carbon dioxide concentrations, having that information is invaluable. Someone needs to figure out what CO2 mitigation strategies are going to work, and we can't wait for a hundred different studies to be conducted before going into the oceans.

We're taking our chances on this one, hoping to "save the planet, and make a little money of the side"(as our CEO likes to say). If things go as planned, we'll have taken millions of pounds of carbon out of the atmophere and begun to restore ocean ecosystems by the end of the year. Even if things fail completely, we'll have obtained priceless information about our oceans, and our fight against global warming. And we're going to do it without burning a single tax dollar.

The New York Times raises some important questions, but in some ways misses the point. What really matters is that we're doing something, and that's a lot more than most people can say.