Russ George

Russ George (Darcy Russel George; born 6 December 1949) is an American businessman and entrepreneur best known for founding the San Francisco–based firm Planktos Inc. which claims to "restore ecosystems and slow climate change".

The ecorestoration treeplanting company he founded in Canada in 1973 originally called Coast Range has planted upwards of 250 million trees, and continues even now.

He used to be member of Greenpeace and was part of the crew of the Rainbow Warrior, though today he considers Greenpeace one of his greatest opponents.

In the 90s, he founded several companies conducting Cold Fusion research.

In the late 1980s, Russell embraced the idea of near limitless energy from the fusion of atoms after hearing of the Fleischmann–Pons experiment.

Shortly after, in 1989, Darcy Russ George and Ronald A. Brightsen founded Clustron Science Corp. in Order to conduct Experiments regarding Cold Fusion themselves.

In 1998, Russ George founded Saturna Technologies and eWorld Travel Corp. an Internet Travel Service Company, which was renamed to GYK Ventures Inc. in 2002, then renamed a second time to Diatom Corp. in 2005.

In March 2005, he incorporated a company named D2Fusion Inc. which would supposedly produce and sell fusion-powered heating devices.

In August 2005, George sold Planktos Inc. and D2Fusion Inc. to a Vancouver-based company named Solar Energy Ltd. for a stated value of $1.5 million and $2 million respectively.

Solar on the other hand agreed to sell Planktos Inc. to another company named Diatom Corp. which was renamed to Planktos Corp. to reflect this acquisition.

In 2007 he provided testimony to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

The name change became effective March 7, 2007.

In May 2007, Planktos Corp. announced their plans to dissolve 100 tons of iron over a 10 000 square kilometer area on the high seas near the Galápagos Islands, the first of six planned large-scale operations Planktos was planning to conduct in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean from 2007 to 2009.

These plans caught the attention of the several NGOs, the first of which was the eco-justice ETC Group, which raised alarm about the large-scale geoengineering project.

This in turn caused other organizations to take notice of Planktos Corp:

The start of the operation was delayed by almost three months due to supply delays, but finally, on November 5, 2007, the Planktos-owned, US-registered vessel Weatherbird II set sail, departing from Fort Lauderdale for an yet unknown location.

Unbeknownst to the organizations attempting to put a halt to these operations, a change of plans had taken place, and instead of heading for Galápagos, the vessel set course on the Bermudas for a refueling stop, intending to cruise across the Atlantic and conduct the operation near the Canary Islands instead in order to avoid confrontation with the Sea Shepherds.

Much to the surprise of Sea Shepherds, on November 14, 2007, the vessel appeared in the harbor of St. Georges, where it refueled as planned.

At this point, the vessel had no iron dust aboard, with Planktos attempting to obtain the required iron for the experiment dust from ground-up metal scrap instead, contradicting earlier claims of using virgin iron dust in the experiment as well as leading to concerns whether the iron used would be contaminated by oils or impurities.

Two days later, the vessel departed for the Canary Islands.

The vessel was denied port entry in the Canary Islands by local authorities in December 2007,

after which the vessel spent several days drifting about before heading northwards to the island of Madeira.

Several days later, the company announced to wind down its business due to “unanticipated events in the Canary Islands”.

On 13 February 2008, the company announced that funds had run dry and all operations were being postponed indefinitely.

In March, the Weatherbird II was sold to an oil exploration interest.

Scientists were especially concerned regarding the fact that previous similar Experiments, like the EisenEx experiment conducted in November 2009 had shown that fertilizing the ocean with iron in this manner would especially promote the growth of a genus of microalgae known as Pseudo-nitzschia which in turn produces large quantities of Domoic acid, a potentially deadly neurotoxin which accumulates through the food chain.

In 2012, the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation decided on conducting an 'ocean pasture restoration experiment' by spreading more than 100 tonnes of an iron-rich dirt-like substance over a large area in the Pacific Ocean.

Russel George was chosen to act as the lead scientist of this operation.

In July 2012, George departed from Victoria with a crew of 11 on a chartered fishing vessel named the Ocean Pearl, loaded with 100 tons of iron-rich nutrient.

The vessel exited the Strait of Juan de Fuca and headed northwards into the Gulf of Alaska until they reached the currents known as the Haida Eddies, approximately 200 miles westward of the coast of Haida Gwaii.

The crew spent the next weeks zigzagging the ship over the ocean while mixing the 4 000 50-lb bags of nutrients with seawater and pumping them overboard using a hose before returning to Victoria to take 20 more tons of nutrient aboard to repeat the process in August.

As of 2022, this remains by far the largest Iron fertilization operation in history.

George claimed this resulted in increased growth of phytoplankton over 10,000 square miles.

Some critics asserted George's actions were illegal while others have argued that they were not.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency reported a significant increase in concentrations of Domoic acid on the northern coast of Haida Gwaii in the latter half of 2012, and citizens of Old Masset reported with unease that the island was hit by the strongest red tides ever seen there.

However, Professor Victor Smetacek, a top authority from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, who has done many experiments in the oceans with Ocean Pasture Restoration, or OPR, related projects, had this to say about OPR safety concerns: “In general, the claim that OPR may cause harmful algal blooms (HABs) and lead to closure of fisheries in coastal waters is completely unfounded.

Specifically, the National Academy of Sciences report mentions that OPR does not pose a threat of HABs in the open deep ocean.

I fully agree with this.” The Haida project, and all OPR projects, are only conducted in the deep ocean.

Critics allege violations of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the London Convention on the Dumping of Wastes at Sea which contain moratoriums on geoengineering experiments.

Parties to the London Convention and London Protocol expressed grave concerns about this experiment.