As someone who was involved in the Planktos project, I am still surprised by how many people focused on the “profit motive”, which seemed to be main objection of the environmentalists. Profit was never the main goal of Planktos. The goal was to research the huge potential benefit of iron fertilization to help restore the health of the oceans. The reason Planktos was organized as a for-profit business was it was otherwise impossible to get funding to do the work. Keep in mind, before Planktos and the huge amount of publicity it generated, there was little or no public awareness of iron fertilization as a technique and very limited funding for the ocean science community to study the field. Above all we need to remember that the oceans are in a very bad state, and getting worse, due to enormous human pressures. There is no political willpower to stop this human impact. Overfishing and pollution will continue. Therefore we need techniques to help restore the health of the oceans…and iron fertilization is our best thing we have so far. It needs to be researched, understood, and developed fully.