Oral Presentation The Institute of Australian Geographers Conference 2023

The ocean absorbs about 30% of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, according to NOAA, and the emerging international interest in ocean-based carbon dioxide removal takes the view that it could be absorbing - and sequestering - much more. This geoengineering ‘industry’ is made up of small independent startups and labs from a range of respected scientific institutions proliferating science-fiction-esque biogeochemical experiments and pilot plants with the aim of accelerating carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere via the ocean. The companies at present seem too small and too outlandish to have any major impact on atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, but they are all looking to scale up both their businesses and specific aspects of ‘natural’ planetary processes. The complexity of ocean systems is such that it appears impossible to know the full effects (and potential impacts) of any such experiments. As I turn my attention to this industry I find myself asking several early questions: 

• How is carbon rendered perceptible and quantifiable through these technologies? What methods of mediation are employed or what stand-ins are used to ‘see’ carbon
• What are the limits of study on the effects of these disruptions to existing systems? The planetary is an impossible scale for scientific research, so where and how are the boundaries placed?
• Is it helpful to situate atmospheric and oceanic carbon dioxide within the geographic subdisciplines of the molecular, the chemical, the thermal, geophilosophy, or perhaps the elemental?