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The Philippines government has approved an Australian company's plan to absorb excess CO2 by dumping massive amounts of urea in the Sulu Sea. Environmental activists say the dumping is a potentially risky, scientifically unsound gamble that underscores the dangerous absence of international geoengineering regulations. Like iron seeding, urea dumping is supposed to nourish blooms of greenhouse gas-gobbling plankton. But iron seeding is controversial, with some scientists saying it might produce even more CO2 -- and compared to urea dumping, iron seeding is well understood. According to a statement issued by the Ottawa-based ETC Group, UK-based Corporate Watch, Malaysia-based Third World Network and the Philippines' SEARICE,Urea and nitrogen fertilizer pollution caused by agricultural run-off has been linked to the creation of toxic algal blooms in the scientific literature, and raises the possibility of dead zones from oxygen depletion