Vision
We are too late to halt climate change through carbon reduction. Reaching net zero would stop the rise in carbon dioxide, but acidified water would take centuries to recover, and about 57% of the mapped winter ocean surface may fall below its aragonite threshold by 2045. We will have uncontrollable climate change because we will have lost the planet’s life support system, which regulates the climate.
GOES believes that a major cause, alongside fishing, habitat loss and climate disruption, is toxic forever chemicals with oil-like lipophilic properties that are adsorbed onto plastic particles and partially combusted carbon from the combustion of fossil fuels.
Plankton are the planet’s true lungs and our life support system. Plankton also produce the surface microlayer (SML), and we propose that the SML may affect evaporation, but this remains a hypothesis that still needs testing.
We now understand the problem, and with that understanding, we can see solutions.
Coral reefs are dying all over the world; 50% of the Great Barrier Reef is dead, and the rest is severely stressed. Living coral cover has halved worldwide since the 1950s, and Caribbean reefs are among the worst affected. Sargassum, which contains arsenic and heavy metals, pollutes the fish breeding grounds in mangrove swamps.
Coral, mangroves, and wetlands provide a nursery ground for more than 25% of all fish and marine life. Our index puts marine animal life at roughly 35 to 54% of its 1850 level, and our decline curve after 2023 is a scenario, not a forecast. Fishing, whaling, habitat loss, pollution and climate disruption have together removed about half of marine animal life since 1850. We may be carbon neutral, but without marine life, humanity cannot survive, or at least 90% of us will perish.
Why have we only got 20 years before the oceans are destroyed? Surface ocean pH has fallen from about 8.2 before industrialisation to about 8.04 in 2024. Aragonite dissolves when its saturation state falls below 1, and sensitive animals respond below about 1.6. On present trends, about 57% of the mapped winter ocean surface may fall below its threshold by 2045. We have already passed the tipping point; we will reach the end point in 25 years +/- 5 years.
We will lose the oceans in 20 years unless we are successful in our mission
Mission statement
Pollution of our atmosphere, soil, freshwater, and oceans is viewed as a cost by governments and industry, with no benefit to shareholders. Water companies believe that dilution in the oceans is the solution to pollution because how can you pollute something as vast as the world’s oceans?
Pollution cannot be solved through dilution because some chemicals do not dissolve in water but instead become concentrated on particles such as plastic and carbon from the combustion of fossil fuels. These toxic chemicals accumulate in the particles. Plankton eat these particles, and we are testing whether the chemicals they carry harm the plankton.
So, what’s the answer?
To protect Nature and allow it to regenerate, we must eliminate pollution at all levels.
GOES’ mission is to prevent pollution from entering the world’s oceans and to provide appropriate solutions.
Much of the world’s wastewater, by some UN estimates most of it, still enters rivers and seas without adequate treatment. Water is biologically treated in Europe, North America, and other high-income countries, but there is no tertiary treatment to remove microplastics and toxic chemicals. The sludge is then dumped on farmland or landfill sites, resulting in no treatment and only diffuse pollution.
Given that rural communities account for 80% of global pollution, this is where we are focusing our efforts with GOES and the implementation of our EDEN CYCLE wastewater treatment system in conjunction with the CAFE filter for final waste water treatment and drinking water provision.
All of the technology is OPEN Source; it’s not about GOES making money; it’s about providing a solution that has the potential to save our souls on the verge of perdition.
We will survive climate change, but we will not survive the loss of marine life from the oceans.