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Walking the Planktos
By Russell Seitz
Adamant: What's the Matter with Science and the Media?

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Admiralty Lawyers Avast! Here be a new Tort: Carbon Offset Piracy

The Black Spot stalks the carbon footprints of Planktos Corporation, last seen trying  to inflict a hotfoot on the shoes of the fisherman.

Climateer reports the scalawags may have added a new misdemeanor to the annals of Admiralty Law: Carbon Offset Piracy. Having promised more carbon uptake by seawater than could plausibly  be delivered by shoveling rust over the transom of the cockleshell research vessel that is the main asset of the Enterprise, this merry crew has reportedly has made off with the corporate flagship.

The yacht Weatherbird II has sailed out of sight of its creditors, hence Climateer's asking:

Is Something Very Wrong With Planktos?

Planktos is thirteen days past the date on which their 3rd quarter financials were due at the Securities and Exchange Commission. This is odd for a few different reasons. 1) The company has no revenues. It's not as if they were GE or XOM, with billions of dollars in sales and profits to account for. Planktos has zero revenues. 2) Planktos has moved its only tangible asset, the good ship Weatherbird II, outside of U.S. jurisdiction. The boat is carried on the balance sheet at $796,727, net of depreciation. Except for $14,000 in cash, the boat was the only asset on the 6-30 balance sheet. PLKT also showed a $797,194 receivable, probably not from operations (they have no sales) and possibly the reason for the delayed filing.

The marine saga continues-- Last week the Spanish papers reported Weatherbird II had hightailed it for High Barbaree, Agadir to be exact, but now she is in Madeira, having been refused entry at Las Palmas on a claim of medical emergency due to , you guessed it,  plankton poisoning.

The most recent account from the Spanish Mainsteam press, in El Publico, says Cap'n George wants the EU & Spain to pay Planktos to investigate the "Cigatura Crisis" it claims to have discovered  en route to nowhere.

Is this  El Ultimo Suspiro Del Alabatroz, or will the conversion of cutlass rust into Sargasso blossom into the Treasure of the Indies? The smart as paint money is laying two doubloons to a pottle of grog that these lascaradoes will end up keelhauled.

POSTSCRIPT 19 December:
Before the Securities & Exchange Inquisition could locate a comfy chair, or His Spanish Majesty's Admiralty a handy yardarm, Planktos  announced it would attend to Suspending Operations itself +

As to the next exciting episode, who knows?  Will Cap'n George yet get to sail in company with the whacko French chemistry Nobel laureate who sincerely  believes in the biological transmutation of iron into manganese?  There be a  process surely promising great riches in  synergy with cold fusion, as the two might convert ironic phytoplankton into manganese nodules.

This would, of course, lead to runaway ocean desertification and a boiling Strangelove sea full of mutant squid aglow with neutrons, a prospect  presenting  upside  opportunities for the carbon permit market, and whoever has the lease on Glomar Explorer these days. There is always business in great waters. 

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