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Bare feet crossing sun-baked earth. Villagers huddling
around a disappearing well. Shriveled plants rotting in
an abandoned field. These are but a handful of the images
associated with a water-scarce future—one that could
soon become reality as "population growth and economic
development [drive] increased water demand throughout
the world,” says Charles Iceland, global director for water at
the World Resources Institute. “Meanwhile, climate change is
decreasing water supply and/or making rainfall increasingly
erratic in many places.” This dual effect of spiking demand and
The Most Important Plant
You Overlooked—Seaweed
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Zunian Luo
Weston High School
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volatile supply has already created devastating consequences.
A notable example is Cape Town’s 2017 near encounter with
its day zero—the day the water supply is estimated to run out.
Without rapid worldwide action to address the causes and
effects of climate change, other cities such as Mexico City
and entire regions such as the Tigris-Euphrates Basin, which
encompasses Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, could soon face their
day zero. To minimize damage from water scarcity and other
climate change related disasters, lawmakers must leave no
policy tool, however unconventional, off the table.
Climate Solutions–Future Benefits, Present Costs
While a lack of scientif ic evidence has long been
suspected to be a significant cause of climate inaction,
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth
Assessment Report reveals that a lack of political willpower is
a more important factor; a perfect storm of political challenges
including the long-term accrual of climate damages, the
difficulty to link specific events to climate change, and the
incentive for countries to free-ride off of other countries’
climate action make it difficult to politically justify costly action.
If unaddressed, this perfect storm could fuel a dangerous self- fulfilling prophecy by making climate action more costly, and
thus even less politically palatable.
The ability to create an impactful portfolio of policies is further
complicated by the common assumption that a single policy
initiative can serve as a climate change panacea. While such
a proposition may make sense to politicians looking to win
reelection, it effectively crowds out economic and political
capital for smaller-scale solutions that could be more cost- effective. This is particularly evident in how one of the most
underutilized natural climate change solutions—the ocean—is
often relegated to the footnotes of major climate initiatives.
Kelp to the Help
Amid a sea of ocean based climate change solutions, seaweed
stands out for its scalable potential to meet ever growing
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food and industrial demands while restoring the environment
at the same time. In contrast to land-based plants, seaweed
does not require agricultural inputs such as water-intensive
feed, pollutive synthetic fertilizers, and expansive plots of land.
Where conventional land-based farming causes environmental
degradation, cultivating seaweed restores the local marine
environment; it crucially offsets ocean acidification and
eutrophication—climate change-associated processes that
reduce marine biodiversity—by absorbing carbon dioxide,
nitrogen, and phosphorus.
When it comes to phasing out non-renewable fuels and single- use packaging, one promising solution is creating biofuels
and bioplastics from seaweed, which has a significantly lower
carbon footprint than existing land based sources like corn. At
the same time, seaweed aquaculture is emerging as a more
accessible alternative to complex carbon capture facilities in
the budding carbon offset market; cultivating seaweed in just
5 percent of US waters can effectively sequester the carbon
output of 20 million cars.
Even with more than 48 million sq km of suitable ocean area,
however, just six Southeast and East Asian countries produce
about 97 percent of the global harvest. Although it may be
optimal from a purely market perspective for several countries
to specialize in seaweed production, more countries must
increase their seaweed production in order for seaweed to
have a significant impact on climate change.
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Seaweed farmer in Bali, Indonesia. By Anton Raharjo.
Environmental Externalities
With so many economic and environmental benefits, perhaps
an obvious question is: why does so much of the world
produce so little of its seaweed? As is often the case, the
reason (and solution) comes down to basic economics.
On the demand side, the fact that most seaweed is currently
used for direct human consumption, which is relatively
unpopular outside of Asia, contributes to the low price of
seaweed in much of the world. On the supply side, the low cost
of starting a farm decreases the price of seaweed and means
that labor comprises a greater share of total expenses, thus
disadvantaging wealthier Western countries. Nevertheless, the
inability for producers and consumers to fully internalize the
positive environmental externalities of seaweed means that it
is underproduced and underconsumed relative to its socially
optimal quantity everywhere.
To correct such a market failure, policymakers must incentivize
seaweed production beyond the market-determined
quantity. However, just as policymakers rarely leverage the
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environmental benefits of the ocean, few are aware of the
environmental benefits of seaweed. Also on the academic side,
evidence on the role of seaweed in the fight against climate
breakdown is limited relative to tried and true climate policies.
A Developing Success
Although many countries rely on mainstream climate policies,
some governments have been responding to the rapidly
rising cost of procrastinating climate action by aggressively
supporting their seaweed farming industry. Around the turn of
the 21st century, India implemented a public-private seaweed
partnership; the State Bank of India granted around $300
million in loans to more than 540,000 seaweed aquaculture
groups, while PepsiCo India purchased the harvests from
these groups. Jumpstarted by this critical early support, India’s
seaweed production has increased more than 119,000 percent
from just 21 tons in 2001 to more than 25,000 tons in 2020.
Indian Seaweed Farmers Checking Lines. By Bhaskar.
In addition to increasing net exports, the rise of India’s
seaweed industry has restored marine habitats, reduced
overfishing, and provided economic opportunities for
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