Inhabitat

Thank you for your kind words! We have been getting a decent amount of attention lately, but we are very much heads down, working on our science and deployment of our experiments. We announced in April, on Earth Day, that we have found a pair of bays in the Caribbean where we will run our first experiment(s). And in May, Stripe announced their selection of CDR purchases and we were selected for 3333.33 tonnes @ $75.

There was a lot going on in the world at the time when it was announced (and for whatever reason Stripe's post or the following article didn't receive traction on HN), but
that announcement made it into Reuters-> Stripe picks $1 million in carbon-removal projects to spur industry
https://www.reuters.com/article/climate-change-stripe/stripe-picks-1-mln-in-carbon-removal-projects-to-spur-industry-idUSL1N2CX0BU

This was our first bigger article, that came from our poster in December at the American Geophysical Union with our plan to take our coastal enhanced weathering "from the lab to the beach"-> Could putting pebbles on beaches help solve climate change?
https://www.sfchronicle.com/environment/article/Could-putting-pebbles-on-beaches-help-solve-14911295.php

Recently, we were in MIT Technology Review -
How green sand could capture billions of tons of carbon dioxide
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/22/1004218/how-green-sand-could-capture-billions-of-tons-of-carbon-dioxide/

Fast Company -> Ever been to a green sand beach? The newest geohack to fight…

> The problem isn’t the science as much as the proposed solutions. The more extreme solutions are more about income redistribution rather than actual science. Whether or not climate change is unequivocally human caused, there are those that would use “climate” as a means to enact economic proposals they favor regardless of the climate impact. https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-failed-c...

a link to an opinion piece in the toronto sun isn’t enough evidence imo (sorry just calling it like i see it, please feel free to provide more evidence)

> For example, what about nuclear? If we are “serious” about climate change, nuclear is the best choice for large scale electrical production, but nuclear faces opposition from those that scream loudest about the danger of fossil fuels.

what about it? there are serious problems with nuclear, for example what to do with the waste (we already saw the disaster waiting to happen at fukushima), what about proliferation of potentially refinable nuclear materials (weapons)? i agree compared to coal it’s a potential short term option, but why do nuclear when we have high powered solar (molten salt) stations [1] that cost a fraction of nuclear stations [2] to say nothing of traditional wind and hydro electric generation

again, i’m not 100% against nuclear but there are much faster, agile and cleaner alternatives already in production

> What about the Paris climate meeting? The local airport was filled to the brim with private…

This project is hugely problematic, both because there are some pretty fundamental flaws in how he characterizes plastic pollution and the lack of any responses from the Ocean Cleanup about the criticism from just about every ocean plastics expert out there. None of the major plastics pollution nonprofits endorse this work, not out of jealousy but frustration with an idea getting so much attention and funding purely because some charismatic kid has talked about it.

Assuming that it is engineered to survive storms (which is DEFINITELY not an easy feat given the design), anything like this will have an impact on marine life. Anything that floats like this will act like a FAD (fish aggregating device) and attract animals, and should be designed in a way to minimize impact or incidental catch. It seems like his discussion about what that includes has been pretty vague to date. This includes the small things in the ocean that will certainly be harmed by this device.

The dispersion of plastics in the ocean seems to follow a different profile than this device addresses. Contrary to what people imagine when they think of the “Pacific Garbage Patch,” the bulk of plastic in the oceans is not large pieces that are floating. Pretty much all plastic in the ocean has broken down into small pieces and sits through the entire water column following the mixed layer phenomenon. There’s been a lot of great research on that, including microplastics which are now found in practically every…

There's actually disagreement about oceans self cleaning (or not).

From https://inhabitat.com/the-fallacy-of-cleaning-the-gyres-of-plastic-with-a-floating-ocean-cleanup-array (and Flotsametrics):

> to clean the ocean of floating plastic, you don’t need to go out and get it, it will come to you. Yep, that’s right. Oceanographer Curtis Ebbsmeyer, author of, Flotsametrics [33] describes a rarely talked about phenomena that occurs naturally in the ocean called Gyre Memory. Gyre Memory demonstrates that upon each orbit of a gyre, the gyre will spit out about half its contents. These contents will then either enter another current or gyre or wash up on land. As this repeats, it means that eventually, all the plastic in the ocean will be spit

Slat's reply, from https://theoceancleanup.com/updates/responding-to-critics:

> There is no data to support this statement. Actually, using the best models currently available (the Van Sebille and LebretonModels) we attempted to quantify the natural loss of plastics from the gyres, producing a figure of <0.1%/yr. Based on communication between our modelers and the makers of the models, we eventually decided to exclude this figure from the report, because the models are unreliable near the coast. But it’s safe to say a gyre does not spit out half of its contents per rotation. Unfortunately, it appears that the plastic that’s already trapped in the currents of the gyres does not simply go away by itself.

They also have policies in place to support parents at the beginning of a child's life (i.e. the most important developmental phase of life). They also have a lower GDP per capita and somehow still afford all of these benefits that we are continually told would bankrupt our country. Truly a country of "family values".

- Maternity boxes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_package

- New child leave - Expecting mothers in Finland can start their maternity leave seven weeks before their estimated due date. After that the government covers 16 additional weeks of paid leave through a maternity grant, regardless of whether the mother is a student, unemployed, or self-employed. The country also offers eight weeks of paid paternity leave. - https://www.businessinsider.com/countries-with-best-parental-leave-2016-8#finland-1

- Partial Care Leave - After a child turns three, parents may take partial care leave, meaning, you can work fewer hours per day or week in order to spend more time with your child — and though you can’t take partial care leave at the same time, both the father and the mother can take the partial care leave at a different times. This innovative leave lasts until the end of the child’s second school year. - https://inhabitat.com/inhabitots/finlands-family-benefits-prove-why-its-ranked-the-number-one-place-in-the-world-to-be-a-parent/

- Universal Healthcare - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Finland

"We need to look forward to what the best use of resources is today for the people of NYC. And that's not a pretty building -- it's increased capacity, resiliency, and safety."

But those two things needn't be be mutually exclusive right? There are plenty of modern examples that offer both.

The Santiago Calatrava World Trade Center Station in downtown Manhattan, The Gare de Oriente in Lisbon, the Rotterdam Centraal in the Netherlands, Liège-Guillemins railway station in Belgium are all examples that combine both practicality and good aesthetics.

For those interested:

http://www.archdaily.com/783965/world-trade-center-transportation-hub-santiago-calatrava

http://inhabitat.com/santiago-calatravas-gorgeous-oriente-station-is-topped-with-a-leaf-like-canopy-that-looks-lighter-than-air/oriente-station-lisbon-portugal-1/

http://www.dezeen.com/2009/12/02/liege-guillemins-station-by-santiago-calatrava/

http://www.archdaily.com/588218/rotterdam-central-station-benthem-crouwel-architects-mvsa-meyer-en-van-schooten-architecten-and-west-8