Planktos Calls for ''All Hands on Deck'' Emergency Response to Prevent Massive Plant Life Extinction in the World's Seas

  
    
  
  
    
      Planktos Corp. (OTCBB:PLKT) of San Francisco and Vancouver engages in 
      developing and delivering ecorestoration solutions to slow the 
      catastrophic decline of ocean and terrestrial ecosystems driven by the 
      escalating surplus of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. The Planktos “greener 
      solutions” projects include the creation of 
      tens of thousands of hectares of new climate forests within the national 
      park systems of the European Union and the pioneering of ocean 
      restoration technologies to rehabilitate decimated marine ecosystems.
    
    
      The work of Planktos is best described as the restoration and nurturing 
      of the native green plants both in terrestrial forests and amongst the 
      phytoplankton plant communities that sustain all higher life forms in 
      the seas. While most people know that our great forest ecosystems are 
      seriously endangered, few understand that tiny ocean plants are even 
      more vital to planetary health and they are an in even more dramatic 
      decline. The world’s rainforests are being 
      steadily felled at the rate of 1% per year, which is a great eco-tragedy 
      for the 2% of the planet they cover. But ocean plants are disappearing 
      at the same 1% per year rate and this is occurring all across the 72% of 
      the planet that is covered by the seas. In the past 3 years alone we 
      have lost an amount of ocean plant life equivalent to all the rainforest 
      vegetation on earth. Recent reports from NASA, NOAA and peer reviewed 
      journals have documented that in the last three decades we have lost 17% 
      of plankton plant life in the North Atlantic, 26% in the North Pacific, 
      and as much as 50% in sub-tropical ocean regions. “These 
      reports clearly signal the beginning of an unprecedented mass extinction 
      of planetary life,” says Planktos President 
      Russ George.
    
    
      The 2005 report of the British Royal Society sounded the alarm on ocean 
      acidification due to rising levels of atmospheric CO2. Most CO2 in the 
      air dissolves into the surface ocean and the Royal Society predicted 
      that rising CO2 levels will result in such high levels of ocean water 
      acidity that it could extinguish all ocean plant life between 2050 and 
      2100. In the November 3, 2006 issue of SCIENCE, an international ocean 
      science team projected a global collapse of every single commercial 
      fishery by 2048. As if these crises were not imminent enough, a May 2007 
      SCIENCE report declared that the Southern Ocean CO2 
      sink had reached saturation decades ahead of the Royal Society’s 
      grim predictions. The accumulating research now makes it irrefutably 
      clear that sea life is facing an accelerating catastrophe on many fronts 
      and immediately requires the ocean-saving plankton restoration 
      technologies that Planktos is developing.
    
    
      Planktos’ 2007-2008 pilot project series 
      closely follows the recommendations of leading international ocean 
      research teams who have been engaged in developing this ocean 
      restoration technology for the past 20 years at a total cost of nearly 
      $100 million dollars. Hundreds of scientists from scores of ocean 
      institutes have participated in this work both in laboratories and on 
      major ocean trials. These two decades of research have clearly 
      demonstrated the restorative power and minimal side effects of ocean 
      iron replenishment, which is popularly referred to as iron 
      fertilization. At least 10 small-scale iron fertilization projects have 
      been completed and proved that careful iron replenishment can provide 
      the same plankton restoration effects as the natural but declining 
      delivery of micronutrient iron from wind-borne dust.
    
    
      This promising series of small, budget-limited experiments has 
      inevitably led to scientific demands for larger and longer trials in 
      which researchers would monitor their iron-stimulated blooms for their 
      full 4-6 month life cycles and not just the first few weeks as most 
      earlier work has done. In response to this call, Planktos is now 
      beginning a series of six pilot project blooms of the requested size, an 
      order of magnitude larger than previous work, and is dedicating its 
      research vessel Weatherbird to study each bloom from its beginning to 
      its natural end. To create monetary value and sustain this work with 
      carbon credits, Planktos must and will comply with the extensive and 
      intensive Kyoto Protocol and EU mandated regulatory and third-party 
      scientific oversight processes to obtain certified status for its 
      sequestered CO2.
    
    
      Over the course of the next several years Planktos will collaborate with 
      scores of scientists and engineers from international ocean science 
      institutions both aboard ship and ashore to develop this form of ocean 
      stewardship in a scientifically, environmentally, and economically 
      viable form. “This is work that must be done 
      if we are to reverse the apocalyptic collapse of the ocean ecosystem as 
      well as the climate crisis it is helping to accelerate,” 
      says Russ George. “We are the first 
      responders to a planetary medical emergency.”
    
    
      Planktos European forest restoration work through its EU subsidiary 
      KlimaFa (Hungarian for “climate tree”) 
      is familiar and generally well understood, but its pioneering ocean work 
      is now the target of a misguided campaign fomented by opponents to 
      climate change solutions that involve carbon offsets or carbon credits. 
      Mr. George observes, “Some groups are intent 
      on perpetuating the notion that offsetting emissions somehow gives 
      people permission to pollute and this unfairly lessens the massive 
      sacrifice they demand by insisting on immediate cold turkey withdrawal 
      from fossil fuels. They are industriously misleading news reporters to 
      ignore all the dire ocean reports that motivate this work, and to 
      believe that Planktos’ ocean restoration 
      pilot projects will endanger rather than revive and rescue ocean 
      ecosystems. Their characterizations of iron restoration as ‘pollution’ 
      are as ludicrous as calling manure pollution on organic farms. In fact 
      we are only restoring natural iron in parts per trillion concentrations, 
      which no agency in the world even bothers to measure let alone regulate. 
      We obviously must also radically cut our emissions, too, but no matter 
      how much and how fast we can reduce our use of fossil fuels, we still 
      need to address the immense existing surplus and only ecorestoration 
      sinks can safely and affordably manage that.”
    
    
      On June 19th UK’s Independent reported that 
      six scientists from leading US scientific institutions have issued what 
      amounts to an unambiguous warning to the world: civilization itself is 
      threatened by climate change. Led by James Hansen, NASA’s 
      Goddard Institute for Space Studies director, who first warned the US 
      Congress about global warming, their 29-page Royal Society report ends, “We 
      conclude that a feasible strategy for planetary rescue almost surely 
      requires a means of extracting [greenhouse 
      gases] from the air.” 
      All Planktos’ endeavors have been shaped by a 
      similar conclusion and the company sincerely hopes that ecorestoration 
      critics begin to take science and our common future as seriously as 
      their own interests and ideology.
    
    
      Planktos’ work is financed by early-stage 
      institutional investors in the EU and Canada and via its public company 
      status (symbol: PLKT). Planktos’ pioneering 
      efforts are expected to make the company a leading provider of the most 
      immediate, effective, and inexpensive solutions to global warming, 
      climate change, and ocean collapse. Planktos earns revenue via the 
      climate change carbon offset markets of the EU and other Kyoto Protocol 
      nations. It is also working to assist development of similar markets in 
      the US climate change arena in concert with other organizations that 
      understand the critical importance of ecorestoration activities. The 
      firm expects to offer participants, supporters and investors extremely 
      rewarding new opportunities in the 2007-2008 time frame.
    
    
      Forward-Looking Statements: A number of statements contained in this 
      press release may be considered forward-looking statements within the 
      meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. A 
      safe-harbor provision may not be applicable to the forward-looking 
      statements made in this press release because of certain exclusions 
      under Section 27A (b). These forward-looking statements involve a number 
      of risks and uncertainties, including the sufficiency of existing 
      capital resources, uncertainties related to the development of Planktos’ 
      business plan, and the ability to secure additional sources of 
      financing. The actual results that Planktos may achieve could differ 
      materially from any forward-looking statements due to such risks and 
      uncertainties. Planktos encourages the public to read the information 
      provided here in conjunction with its most recent filings on Form 10-KSB 
      and Form 10-QSB. Planktos public filings may be viewed at www.sec.gov.