When the Weatherbird II cruised up the Potomac River and into the nation's capitol in March of last year, spirits were high. The freshly painted 115-foot research vessel was about to set sail for what would be the world's first for-profit effort to "fertilize" the ocean with iron, growing a vast forest of marine plant life that would pull the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The lap through Washington was an effort to drum up support for the voyage to the iron-deficient waters west of the Galápagos Islands.