
Seaweed could be scrubbing more carbon from the atmosphere than expected (2017) - propman
https://oceana.org/blog/seaweed-could-be-scrubbing-way-more-carbon-atmosphere-we-expected
======
ariehkovler
Really interesting. Makes me think of Daisyworld and the Gaia Hypothesis.

Daisyworld is a model Earth covered in black and white daisies, that either
absorb or reflect light. In the model, black daisies need less light because
they absorb more, increasing the Earth's heat absorption. White daisies absorb
less so need more light, but also reflect more light back, increasing the
surface albedo of the planet and lowering its ambient temperature.

Because of this, there's a feedback loop were even if the sun gets a little
hotter or colder, the successful daisy would spread and either warm or cool
the Earth in response, effectively acting as a stabilizer. Gaia theory
suggests that the world is full of these stabilizing systems.

Anyone who ever played SimEarth in the 90s, it was based on this theory and
even had a Daisyworld simulation built in.

In this case, the paper is suggesting that seaweed grows much faster in
response to raised CO2, and then sequesters some of that carbon underwater.

One question I have is how sequestered the undersea carbon really is and
whether it will have other, unknown effects on the deep see ecosystem.

~~~
matt42
>> Gaia theory suggests that the world is full of these stabilizing systems.

Earth may have tricks to save its ecosystem, one of them could be temporarily
increase temperatures and sea levels, just enough to end humanity.

~~~
samfriedman
Something I think of often when people say things like "we need to stop
climate change and save the world!" The world will be fine, it's not going
anywhere: humans and the species we like on the other hand...

~~~
older
Are you George Carlin?

~~~
samfriedman
Ah, yes, that's where I first heard that thought! Thanks, just a bit of
cryptomnesia.

[https://youtu.be/BB0aFPXr4n4?t=144](https://youtu.be/BB0aFPXr4n4?t=144)

Side note: something I've never seen before on that Youtube video: it links
the Wikipedia page for climate change right under the video. An attempt to
battle misleading videos perhaps?

~~~
rement
The Wikipedia links are a new initiative Google is doing to combat fake news
and misleading information [0].

0: [https://youtube.googleblog.com/2018/07/building-better-
news-...](https://youtube.googleblog.com/2018/07/building-better-news-
experience-on.html)

------
s_dev
Also relevant: Feeding dairy cows seaweed mitigates the amount of methane they
pass. Irish famers are beginning to do this because seaweed is easy to come by
in Ireland.

[https://phys.org/news/2018-05-seaweed-relieve-gassy-cows-
dai...](https://phys.org/news/2018-05-seaweed-relieve-gassy-cows-dairy.html)

~~~
nickkell
Hackernews loves these articles that give some kind of hope for a magical
solution to climate change. It's easier than the thought that it will require
a huge concerted effort across the world and changing the habits of millions

~~~
LeifCarrotson
It's not individuals exercising bad habits that causes climate change. It's
the fact that the current political, economic, and ecological landscape
incentivizes behaviors that cause climate change.

The deterrent of trying to give people a guilt trip for driving in a hurry or
for eating beef is not sufficient to counteract the tremendous tragedy of the
commons that makes those behaviors happen. Regulations that associate
financial costs with the ecological costs that people and businesses are
currently free to ignore are the answer, along with technologies that use
those funds to reverse the needs that remain.

Get your priorities straight: When the half gallon used while people brush
their teeth is the most important waste of water, then address it! But when
the farm down the road pays next to nothing to pour out three feet of water on
its entire land area, any expenditure on toothbrushing habits is wasteful.

~~~
atourgates
I'd even say that the focus on personal responsibility for climate change is
creating unnecessary resistance.

I live in a conservative area, and I've been trying to be more proactive about
trying to understand the viewpoints that cause people to be skeptical of
things like climate change.

I recently had a conversation with someone who was skeptical of climate change
- but had an education with a scientific background and the tools that should
help him land on the side of clear science.

What it came down to is that he feels personally attacked by many of the
personal recommendations for reducing CO2 emissions.

For example, when someone says that we need stricter emissions regulations for
vehicles, what he hears is "you're a bad person for driving your old truck."
In reality, if we could get people like him to emissions regulations for new
vehicles and stop guilting them about driving classic cars, we'd be doing
great things for the planet.

My impression is that there's a significant number of people who aren't
opposed to the actual large scale changes that would make the biggest positive
difference in the fight against climate change, but are put off by the "only
you can stop climate change by switching your gas lawnmower to electric" style
rhetoric that does more damage than good.

------
caseymarquis
Most of what I've read lately seems to indicate climate change can't be
mitigated through societal restraint at this point. I think we need to
seriously approach an engineered solution akin to terraforming. I'd love to
know what efforts are being made in this direction.

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
>we need to seriously approach an engineered solution

We haven't tried the political solution yet. Since limiting carbon emissions
is the cheapest and easiest solution to climate change, it would be a good
start to have politicans serve the people's interest instead of the fossil
fuel ones, don't you think?

~~~
0xffff2
What are the people's interests here? Selfishly, I happen to like driving my
car. Cheap gasoline is in my interest. What needs to be served to tackle
climate change politically is the global greater good. We don't have a great
track record with global anything in politics, nor do we have a great track
record on serving the greater good, so I don't like those odds.

~~~
dwaltrip
What do you care about more, cheap gas or the types of lives your
grandchildren or great grandchildren will be living?

Regulations solved the ozone issue, leaded gasoline, etc. It has also failed
many times. It's tricky, I get it. But it can be possible to create effective
regulations. Sometimes situations demand we try -- this looks like one to me.

------
beerlord
Can we bio-engineer seaweed which doesn't decompose and can't be eaten?

Its not a joke - these were the circumstances of early Earth, before microbes
evolved to digest lignin and cellulose. Trees would fall and not decompose,
eventually being compressed into coal.

[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2016/01...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2016/01/07/the-
fantastically-strange-origin-of-most-coal-on-earth/)

~~~
hawkice
It would probably be dangerous to engineer an organism that doesn't break
down. Imagine a living, growing plastic. Except not a Dr. Who villain.

~~~
beerlord
Well presumably we could still collect, dry and burn what accumulates on the
shore, and the rest would fall to the seabed. If the alternative is a hothouse
Earth, with large sections of the planet rendered uninhabitable,
geoengineering schemes like this are going to be necessary. We can start with
iron fertilisation experiments - Australia has a lot of it, and is near
oceans.

~~~
cimmanom
Wouldn’t burning it defeat the carbon sequestration purpose?

~~~
NinjaViking
That would be a desperate attempt to reverse a runaway process, if it turns
out to be too successful.

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akuji1993
Stupid question incoming. Does it really help us to trap even more CO2 under
the surface? If something exposes that CO2 again, it will be back up in the
atmosphere right? So it feels like this would be a "solution" like storing
used uranium underground in lead containers - eventually it will become a
problem. Or am I completely wrong here?

~~~
ianai
I don’t think it can truly use seaweed to sequester carbon unless we harvest
the seaweed and entomb it underground - but it has to be somewhere the
decomposition won’t leak carbon into the atmosphere.

~~~
plufz
The (early) findings of the study is that is sequestered from leaking into the
atmosphere. From the article: "The study estimated that about 11 percent of
total seaweed production may be sequestered, most of it after it sinks down
into the deep sea."

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pvaldes
There is a lot of the word "seaweed" repeated in the article, but they are
talking about brown macroalgae. A group comprising a few families inside the
huge diversity of extant algae.

Pointing this can seem pedantic, but the detail is important. Brown macroalgae
evolved to live in cold waters. In the limit of their distribution you raise
the minimum water temperature two degrees and the plant is unable to reproduce
anymore. As they have short lives, at 25 celsius degrees they went locally
extinct very fast. Is their kryptonite.

Moreover, they are adapted to live in a permanent state of guerrilla quiting
warm areas on years with "The Niño" event, and massively recolonizing the area
in the next year. This is the reason for their famous superfast growth.

In extensive areas of the south of Europe, entire submarine forests of the
"european Kelp" Laminaria and Saccorhiza (comprising a huge biomass) went in
an accelerate decay and are totally gone in the last few decades. They can't
return because the local average temperature raised a few degrees in the
coastal areas. We need to keep this in mind if we count in this creatures to
store our excess of carbon.

------
sn41
Didn't Freeman Dyson talk about this idea?

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/12/the-
dan...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/12/the-danger-of-
cosmic-genius/308306/)

~~~
annadane
I believe in climate change (and Dyson does too, he just doesn't like the
alarmism) but Dyson is a very interesting person and clearly should be taken
seriously.

------
raverbashing
At least one good news

Maybe we should look into farming seaweed (and other algae)

~~~
Shoh3pif
From the article:

 _> All in all, super-powered seaweeds could sequester around 173 million
metric tons (190 million tons) of carbon each year, about as much as the
annual emissions of the state of New York._

It's not that much in comparison to the emissions of the entire industrialized
world.

Every bit helps of course, but it's not a magical solution to our problems.

~~~
DennisP
That's how much is happening naturally, with a low percentage of seaweed
sinking to the depths. Large-scale farming operations could do a lot more.

~~~
Shoh3pif
Intensive farming only happens when the material is used in a profitable way.
Growing things only to dump them in the oceans is only profitable with
subsidies or carbon taxes.

Extensive farming would likely have the natural rate of sequestration.

------
andy_ppp
Make me wonder if we could grow seaweed and turn it into oil...

~~~
bacon_waffle
Not seaweed exactly, but some algae produces a significant amount of oil:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel)

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wj
Does this mean that, like barbecue, it should be eaten in moderation because
of cancer risks?

~~~
EamonnMR
Unlikely. The carcinigens you worry about in barbecue are compounds formed in
the extreme heat of cooking by that method, not formed inside living
organisms.

------
wallace_f
By contrast reddit's front page is trending a Vice article with the opposite
sentiment

