Three new reports examine the potential of blue carbon pathways to act as natural climate solutions.
By Kristin Kleisner, Monica Moritsch and Jamie Collins
EDFish
Selected tag(s): Blue Carbon
Looking to the oceans for answers to the climate crisis
Posted in International, Science/Research Also tagged Climate change, climate-resilient fisheries, collaboration, Conservation, Domestic, Marine Protection, Oceans, sustainability, technology Comments are closed
The oceans’ twilight zone? More important than you can imagine!
By Douglas Rader, Jamie Collins and Edith Widder, CEO & Senior Scientist, Ocean Research & Conservation Association
People of a certain age will recall being mesmerized—perhaps terrified!—by a television series called “The Twilight Zone,” which ran 156 episodes from 1959 to 1964. The show, which focused on people’s experiences at the edge of reality, is among the best loved and highest rated television productions of all time. Today, the edge of the unknown exists closer than you many think—in the sea, at the wonderful and strange, just-dark middle depths, where light fades and strange creatures lurk. Read More
Posted in International, Policy, Science/Research Also tagged Antarctic, Climate change, Fisheries, krill, mesopelagic fish, Oceans, Seafood, squid, swordfish, tuna, twilight zone Comments are closed
Blue carbon: A better tomorrow begins below
By: Kristin M. Kleisner and Jamie Collins
As we embark this year on the United Nations Ocean Decade, you may be hearing quite a bit about blue carbon. But what is it, and why is it so important for the future of our planet? Well, the oceans play a critical role in trapping carbon, and they have absorbed about a third of all human-generated carbon emissions since the start of the Industrial Revolution. This is important because the carbon that human activity has released into the atmosphere acts as an accelerator of climate change.
When carbon is stored naturally in the various parts of ocean and coastal ecosystems — sequestering it, or taking it out of the atmosphere, where it could contribute to warming — we call it blue carbon. The blue carbon storage reservoir includes waters, sediments, and marine plants and animals. Unfortunately, loss of habitat, overfishing and other human impacts, including those from climate change, are reducing the ability of the oceans to trap carbon. That’s why we are exploring pathways to restore these benefits now and help to secure a better future for us all. You can learn more about blue carbon and some of the ways in which we may be able to restore key pathways using this interactive site. Read More
Posted in Science/Research Also tagged biodiversity, carbon, carbon sequestration, Climate change, Coastal Communities, coasts, Ecosystems, emissions, Food Security, mangroves, mesopelagic fish, Natural Climate Solutions, Oceans, Overfishing, restoration, salt marshes, seaweed, seaweed farms, seaweed forests, Whales Comments are closed
Natural climate solutions cut a steady course through a sea of proposals for ocean carbon dioxide reduction
When it comes to slowing the warming of our planet, there is no substitute for immediate, dramatic reductions in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. But emissions reductions alone won’t be enough to limit warming to the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal at the heart of the 2015 Paris Agreement, or even to the Agreement’s upper limit of 2 degrees Celsius. In fact, we’ll almost certainly need to complement emissions reductions with big investments in carbon dioxide removal, or CDR, to capture and lock away some of the carbon dioxide we’ve already emitted.
Posted in International, Science/Research Also tagged carbon, carbon credits, carbon dioxide removal, carbon sequestration, Climate change, coastal ecosystems, coasts, Engineering and Medicine, geoengineering, greenhouse gases, mangroves, mesopelagic fish, National Academy of Sciences, Natural Climate Solutions, Oceans, salt marshes, twilight zone, whales seaweed Comments are closed
Blue Carbon: a diamond in the rough
As the biosphere continues to warm and the ocean acidifies, solving the global carbon problem becomes more critical each day. Keeping temperatures to survivable levels requires reducing emissions while at the same time working aggressively to absorb as much carbon dioxide as possible, using approaches that can nurture natural ecosystems and help vulnerable human communities flourish. Read More
Posted in Science/Research Also tagged carbon sequestration, kelp, mangroves, Natural Climate Solutions, resilience, seaweed, Whales Comments are closed