By Joshua S Hill •
September 11, 2008
By now, we’ve been well taught to view the steady decrease of Arctic ice as a bad thing; and for good reason, it is. But by now, I also hope that I have been able to teach you that, when dealing with the climate, nothing is simple. If that lesson has managed to make it through, then this latest piece of “good” news is going to be very interesting.
According to two separate research groups, new evidence supports the possibility that the disappearing Arctic ice is a good thing for the planet.
Can selling carbon credits to finance “ocean fertilization” solve global warming?
Greenpeace calls it “irresponsible” but, a variety of companies including, Climos, a San Francisco start-up, have raised a enough venture capital to give it a try. By drizzling an iron slurry across a stretch of ocean the company will leave a bloom of phytoplankton in its wake and hopefully take a small step toward solving global warming.
Researchers with Scripps Institution of Oceanography believe they may have found the answer to the mystifying collapse of Pacific sardine fisheries in the middle of the last century: a shift in wind patterns that drastically reduced the upwelling of plankton, the fish’s primary food source. The discovery has implications for future climate change as well.
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By now, we’ve been well taught to view the steady decrease of Arctic ice as a bad thing; and for good reason, it is. But by now, I also hope that I have been able to teach you that, when dealing with the climate, nothing is simple. If that lesson has managed to make it through, then this latest piece of “good” news is going to be very interesting. 
