The world of carbon offsetting has been subject to some mudslinging of late, according to Planktos, a company which had hoped to use “ocean fertilisation” to generate carbon credits.

The company, which was planning to stimulate the growth of plankton as a means of removing carbon from the atmosphere, has announced iced its ocean fertilisation plans indefinitely.

The company blames the “ideological hostility” of its opponents. Here’s more:

A highly effective disinformation campaign waged by anti-offset crusaders has provoked widespread opposition to plankton restoration in the environmental world, and has caused the company to encounter serious difficulty in raising the capital needed to fund its planned series of ocean research trials.

The company’s wholly-owned research vessel Weatherbird II and crew have been called back from the Portuguese island of Madeira where the ship had been docked awaiting the resources necessary to initiate and monitor its first research plankton blooms.

Management has also radically downsized the company’s staffing while the board of directors has formed a new committee to explore all options currently available. Options include a possible re-launch of planned marine operations, pending additional financing or new partnerships, as well as the possible pursuit of other promising business opportunities in the environmental sphere.

The board of directors continues to believe in the urgent ecological necessity of its ocean restoration plans and the scientific speciousness of objections voiced to date. However, ideological hostility to and misrepresentations of this work will continue to stymie progress until the true gravity of our climatic and ocean crises is more widely understood.

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