What’s Blue Carbon?

we need to stop ocean acidification - part. 2

If you read the Wrong Side Out's previous article about ocean acidification (click here if you haven’t! ), you might be wondering, is there a magical tool to capture carbon dioxide? The best tools come from nature. 

Have you ever heard of blue carbon? Blue carbon is the term for carbon captured by the world's oceans and coastal ecosystems. 

Today the world is already growing seaweed and mangroves to develop blue carbon. For example, common eelgrass - which is fast growing seaweed - grows faster as carbon dioxide levels increase and stores the carbon dioxide inside of the plant. Once the eelgrass withers, the carbon sinks to become mud under the ocean.

If this concept becomes more popular, scientists expect to capture 2.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year. But currently humans are producing 18.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year. That means increasing blue carbon alone is not enough to make our goal of becoming carbon neutral (an equal balance between emitting carbon and absorbing carbon from the atmosphere.)

We need to reduce the carbon dioxide AND increase blue carbon. To do that we all need to work together to reach our goal to protect our future.