More Seaweed to Tackle Climate Change and Feed the World

We often think that human activity, however well intentioned, negatively impacts nature. This need not be the case, nor has it always been the case in the past. For example, the tallgrass prairies of our Great Plains and their enormous productivity can be attributed to the fire ecology practiced by Native Americans.

Development of large-scale seaweed farming in our oceans can be another type of human activity to enhance nature’s bounty. An increasing body of research is documenting the potential of growing kelp and phytoplankton forests to provide food, feed, fertilizer, fiber and biofuels to most of the world, while efficiently storing carbon, offsetting or even reversing acidification and increasing oxygen. Kelp grows many times faster than trees, and even fast-growing bamboo.

Human industrial practices and consumption patterns have led to hotter waters and expanding “deserts” in our oceans. Think of dying coral reefs, extensive dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere and sea floors carpeted with plastic microfibers but devoid of life. Scientists have found that 99 percent of tropical and subtropical oceans are almost totally lacking in marine life. With warming, the oceans’ currents and winds are being turned off one by one. These and other changes to our oceans are laid out alarmingly in the recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Proponents of marine permaculture propose building light-weight lattice structures to which seaweed can attach. Near coastlines, they could be tethered to the ocean floor, or be submerged about 80 feet and allowed to drift in the open sea. With kelp and phytoplankton forests come a great diversity of fish as well as crustacean, sea mammals and birds. Fish populations will soar. These kelp farms will also be fish farms without boundaries or outside inputs. The fish will be diverse, wild, untainted and full of omega-3 fatty acids.

Most of the carbon emitted by human activity is contained within the top 500 feet of the ocean. Any farmed seaweed not consumed by ocean creatures or harvested for biogas or fertilizer would die off and sink to the deep ocean floor, sequestering carbon for centuries. Oceans naturally do a good job of moving carbon from surface water to the depths.

Besides mitigating climate change and restoring the health of our oceans, large-scale kelp farms offer the prospect of big returns on investments: increased seafood catches, fertilizers, medicines, biofuels, beauty products and as an additive to livestock feed. In animal feed, it can reduce potent methane emissions from cows and other grazing livestock by as much as 70 percent, while transitioning land for uses other than growing soy, corn and grass for ruminants.

Europe Is Serious About Dealing with Plastic Waste

Placing Responsibility on Producers for Their Plastic Waste Is Yielding Results

 In the natural world, every bit of waste is a food or input for another creature or process. Contrast that with plastics in our society. Almost all our plastics litter, pollute, and harm creatures and habitats.

 Starting a few years ago, the European Union (EU) launched major efforts to handle the 28 million tons of plastic waste it generates annually. Its approach is to create a circular plastics regime. The EU is already driving investments and innovations toward circular solutions in many sectors of its economy, lessening their carbon footprint and, according to experts, making them increasingly competitive worldwide. A circular economy is one in which products and materials are kept in use along their entire life, from design and manufacture to reuse or recycling — much like with natural systems. Europe’s closed-loop plastics system means every product will be designed and made so that it and its components will be used for as long as possible, repaired or refurbished if broken, and recycled into secondary raw materials multiple times without losing quality.

 Plastics is big business, employing 1.5 million people in Europe and generating $410 billion in 2019. By pushing money and innovation into the design, use, and recyclability of plastic products, the EU was able to set industry-wide targets: All plastic packaging in the EU market must be recyclable by 2030. Starting this year, companies will no longer be allowed to dump plastic waste on poorer countries. The EU has just this year banned the sale of 10 plastic products — those that most commonly litter its beaches and shores, including cutlery, straws, plates and Styrofoam food and beverage containers. By 2030, there will be a total ban on throwaway plastics, a comprehensive reuse system for all other plastics, and a large and potentially lucrative continental market for recycled plastics.

 Perhaps the most powerful aspect of the EU’s plastics strategy is creating producer responsibility. Any company introducing packaging or packaged goods will be responsible for the full cost of the collection, transportation, and recycling of its products. In essence, the polluter pays. Extended producer responsibility is already widespread in Northern and Central Europe. For example, German companies are paying $1.75 billion in fees annually to finance the transport, sorting, and recycling of their plastic waste end-materials. Since January this year, plastic producers in Europe now pay $940 per ton for non-recycled plastic waste. Producer responsibility is leading to the redesign of products with circularity in mind. Already, plastic recycling has soared to three times what it is in the U.S.

 The EU’s strategy for plastics will help it reach its ambitious climate target: cutting greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) 55 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. Reducing oil-based plastics production is projected to shave 3.4 million tons of CO2 from their carbon footprint. Imagine the impact on climate change if producer responsibility were applied to GHG emissions.

The Return of Pedal Power

Over the past three decades, the mobility pattern in S.E. Asia has undergone major transformation: from bicycles to motor scooters and now back to bicycles. According to Beijing’s transportation commission, pedal power accounted for 63% of trips in the 1980s. This figure dropped to less than 18% by 2014. Surprisingly, however, bicycle usage is making a resurgence in the form of bike sharing accessed through smart phone apps. Today in Beijing, population 11 million, there are 2.4 million shareable bikes with half the population being registered users. That’s 40 times as many registered users as in NY City’s large Citi Bike program.

Bike sharing is a fast-growing global phenomenon, pushed in part by Chinese enthusiasm. The key has been joining technology together with a young, highly educated entrepreneurial class. The boom in China arose primarily from the problem of university students repeatedly having their bicycles stolen. Four years ago, some of those students started thinking that maybe you don’t need to own a bike. Now they are some of the most successful Chinese entrepreneurs.

In China, unlike in France where bike sharing got its start, there are no set docking station scattered around a city. Just leave the bike when you get to your destination and lock it (by iPhone, of course). Because of GPS tracking software, this parked bike then appears on the phone app of other nearby subscribers looking for a bike.

The biggest bike sharing companies in China, which have rapidly mushroomed into billion-dollar businesses, are spreading to hundreds of cities around the world, including more than a dozen US cities. A big attraction of bike sharing has been the solving of the “last mile” problem: helping people get between public transit centers and home.

China’s government has been encouraging the development of the shared economy, using a combination of incentives and minimal regulation. In the bike sharing arena, this has made possible explosive growth but has also created problems, the biggest being the many broken-down, discarded and vandalized bikes. Repair efforts have not kept up with the growing heaps of trashed or broken-down shareable bikes. One of the large Chinese companies has developed a bike with a drive shaft rather than chain propulsion, airless rubber tires that can’t be punctured and a solar powered, GPS smart lock—all innovations to minimize the need for repairs and to reduce thievery.

The growth of bike sharing in Europe and America has taken place in a more regulated environment and thus has been slower and more controlled. Because of convenience, health benefits, and improving infrastructure, biking and bike sharing will continue to expand. The public benefits—reduced carbon emissions, less pollution, less urban land dedicated to asphalt and a stronger community connectivity—are further spurs to the growth of pedal power.