SEAWEED: A SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE?

Today discussion on climate change has taken the centre stage in every house and rightly so!

We are releasing so much of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it is now leading to growing global temperature. Increased Industrial activities and burning of coal and fossil fuels for energy have led to the excessive emission of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) levels have reached an all-time high.

Trees take up carbon dioxide and release the necessary oxygen to sustain life. Deforestation has led to a major shrinking of the rainforests across the world. Earlier where rainforests covered an approximate 14% of Earth’s surface, today they only cover an estimated 6%.

The recent spread of awareness regarding global warming and climate change issues has, however, led to a significant slow down of deforestation.

If we can cause global warming by cutting trees, can we reverse global warming by planting a sufficient number of trees?

For research, a team, led by Jean-Francois Bastin of ETH-Zurich in Switzerland, created models for Earth’s forest restoration potential. Though they found that by planting half-trillion trees we could reduce the carbon content in the atmosphere by about 25%, they cautioned that planting trees could never be considered as a substitute for decreasing fossil fuel emissions.

Even if we could plant a half-trillion trees to combat this crisis, it still has other factors to consider. One of them is forest fires.

The recent example of forest fires in the lungs of the world- the Amazon Rainforest.

It is estimated that over 2.24 million acres of the rainforest burnt down in the forest fires of 2019.

Estimates suggest that as much as 140 million metric tons of Carbon dioxide could have been released in the atmosphere.

Another example is that of the Australian Bushfires, where at least 27 million acres of forests are estimated to have burnt. Also, approximately 1.25 billion animals may have been lost. Scientists also fear long-term damage to the ecosystem. Australia’s bushfires have released an estimated 400 million metric tons of CO2 in the atmosphere!

Scientists believe that this will hasten the effects of global warming.

These widespread forest fires could be a symptom of the larger problem — Global Warming.

So what do we do?

We need to plant more trees to combat this problem of global warming by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide emissions and pulling back the carbon dioxide already present in the atmosphere.

But, if there are these instances of widespread forest fires where millions of trees and animals are lost and millions of tons of CO2 released back into the atmosphere, what do we do?

Simple — SUBMERGE THEM!!

What are SEAWEEDS?

Seaweed is a form of algae that grows in the sea. They’re a food source for ocean life.

Presently, they are used as human foods, cosmetics, fertilisers, and for the extraction of industrial chemicals. They have the potential to be used as long and short-chain chemicals with medicinal and industrial uses.

But how do seaweeds solve the Climate Change Crisis?

As found in research, fast-growing oceanic jungles of kelp and other macroalgae are highly efficient at storing carbon. Seaweed may also help in increasing the pH levels and restoring oxygen levels thereby locally reversing the effects of ocean acidification and de-oxygenation.

Like plants on land, as it grows, it absorbs CO2 from the surroundings. But, what it does differently is that it grows about 30–60 times the rate of land-based plants. They also absorb 20 times more CO2 from the atmosphere than land-based plants. This rapid turnover rate makes it ideal for mass-scale production.

Not only that, but some species of seaweeds are also known to be super stable and don’t break down easily, meaning they have the capacity for long-term carbon storage.

The Potential?

Researchers estimate that even if 9% of the world’s ocean surface were to be used for seaweed farming, we would be removing about 53 million tonnes of CO2 annually from the atmosphere!

On top of that, seaweed can also be harvested and used to produce biofuels, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels to a large extent. Estimates show that if all this seaweed were to be harvested and used to produce biofuels, it could replace ALL of today’s fossil fuel needs!

And it doesn’t stop there. Seaweed farming can also produce safe sites for breeding fish population!

So what’s the holdup?

Good News, there is no holdup as such!

The technology needed to make this happen is already available and is being used, although on a much smaller scale. As of today, seaweed farming is prominent in Asia, and China is currently leading with hundreds of square kilometres of seaweed farms off its coast.

The technology is slowly expanding into other regions and if it may help us solve the climate change issue and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels by giving us a better alternative-biofuels, we definitely hope to see more of it in the coming future!!

We at Enactus BITS Goa aim to solve this problem of climate change through Project Sivaar, the sustainable ocean farming initiative.

Stay tuned for our next article series, follow us @enactusbitsgoa!