Tonnes of crushed rocks could help the Great Barrier Reef recover from global warming, but the ‘reckless’ idea comes with ‘unquantified risks’
Continually dumping crushed rocks from a bulk carrier along a Great Barrier Reef shipping route could counteract the acidification of ocean water caused by fossil fuel burning, but would come with unknown side effects on the marine environment and coral reefs, according to a study from Australia’s science agency.
In what is described as a “first order assessment”, scientists at CSIRO found it was theoretically possible to turn back the clock on the effect of decades of fossil fuel burning, but the radical step came with “as yet unquantified risks”.