Can Seaweed Save the Planet?

In this Our Changing Climate climate change video essay, I look at whether seaweed and kelp farming can save the planet and curb emissions like its promoters say seaweed does. Seaweed farming has existed for centuries but it only recently has come into the spotlight in the imperial core for its potential to grow food and animal feed as well as suck thousands of tons of carbon dioxide and emissions out of the air. Seaweed farming could be an essential tool in mitigating emissions and drawing down millions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and back into the earth.

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Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
0:55 - The Basics of Seaweed Farming
2:59 - The Promise of Seaweed
6:06 - The Perils of Seaweed
7:59 - A World of Seaweed
9:25 - Nebula and CuriosityStream Ad
11:55 - Outro

Some images and video supplied by Getty Images
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#seaweed #ocean #climatechange

[OurChangingClimate]

❓ Do you think seaweed is a promising as people say?
👍 Consider commenting, liking and sharing the video!!! It really helps this video reach more people!

[emiebex]

I'd put more faith in Seaweed than Politicians.

[Dantalliumsolarium]

Thank you for talking about how seaweed isn’t going to be a perfect solution. It’s a good thing! But I think any mass agricultural approach is going to be harmful. The ocean needs to do its own ocean thing, not be our big farm. But this goes to lots of areas on our earth, and I think we need to be rebuilding wildnerness

[SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

Even disregarding carbon sequestration; seaweed is still worth it just for the dense vitamins along with reduced land and energy usage to farm per calorie.

That being said, I agree 100% that we have to reduce total emissions at the same time, and ensure that seaweed farming doesn’t turn into as bad of a process as most industrial farming has become.

[ntchriest]

Another quality video using a critical thinking lens on a traditional practice merged with modern innovation. I like the prospect of repairing Dead Zones. Your videos on the Dead Zone, Capitalism is Killing the Planet, Biodiversity, the "corporate suite" you have produced, and a few others I show to the community college students I teach every semester. I teach two versions of Environment and Society courses, as well as Sociology, and I use your videos in each them (I steer my sociology course to be an environmental sociology course). These videos resonate with my students and often serve as an igniter of discussion on the issues and critical systems thinking. I thought you would like to know that your videos have an amplifying effect beyond the YouTube view count. Thank you.

[fal_pal_]

The biodiversity & deacidification benefits alone seem enough to push research along ASAP, carbon capture is icing on the cake

[kathryncryts]

I hadn’t heard of the hype behind seaweed as a carbon sequestration tool. Thanks for covering!

[BrownieX]

The seaweed episode from Undecided with Matt was also great.

[gweegoop]

Using seaweed for omega-3 is a great vegan replacement for fish-based omega pills!

[DrustZapat]

And it's a plastic alternative. You mentioned this in passing, but I think it's a massive point in favor of seaweed farming research.

[rly]

"net source of carbon" -- unless seaweed is actually taking previously sequestered carbon and releasing it into the atmosphere, at worst it is carbon neutral (minus the energy taken to farm it).

[huntermorgan]

stoked to see this episode. im a marine biology student wanting to enter the macro algae realm after graduating. keep up the great work, love this channel!

[michaelmorris]

i just wanna say people like u and St. Andrewism helped me on my journey to becoming an ecosocialist thank u :)

[sqweed]

I sometimes just eat sheets of kelp as a snack it's pretty nice

[kamek]

This is why I always gather seaweed if I find an ocean in minecraft

[ecohumanism]

Reminded of Can Sea Otters Combat Climate Change? (by eating sea urchins and saving kelp forests)

Save beavers though

[queenesterqueen]

I loved this video. I wàs researching alot of this but your video is so concise and answered some of my unanswered aquaculture queires. Thank you, my friend.

[ohnmiel]

Correction: Most seaweeds are actually plants; they currently belong under Kingdom Plantae (Ruggiero et al. 2015)! They are not angiosperms (flowering land plants). Red (Florideophyceae & Bangiophyceae, Rhodophyta) and green (Ulvophyceae, Chlorophyta) seaweeds are plants!

[karmacheme]

Thank you so much for very informative video

[jazzychew]

With any emerging research especially with the analysed benefits for the planet and biodiversity, it's exciting! I'm happy you brought up how seaweed isn't a silver bullet. Every exciting concept needs to be handled properly by people, so it has the impacts we need and want.