U.S. Company to Test Near Galapagos Islands

Ecuador. By the end of this month, U.S. firm Planktos will dump 100 tons of iron dust into the Pacific Ocean near Ecuador's Galapagos Islands, despite opposition from environmentalists and marine scientists.

It will be the first commercial attempt to reduce carbon dioxide, which causes global warming, by using those particles to cause phytoplankton to flourish over an area of 10,000 square kilometers.

Planktos says the extra plankton will absorb a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and carry it into the deep sea. And that this method may be the fastest and most powerful to combat the climate change caused.

But by choosing Galapagos for his first large-scale experiment, Planktos unleashed a barrage of protests. "There is a real risk that it could cause a domino effect in the food chain," said microbiologist Sallie Chisholm of the World Wildlife Fund. (Source: Tierramérica)