We live in a time of change. We need radically new ideas to handle global warming, food shortages, animal extinction, carbon footprints, and land utilization problems. God has provided more than just land-based resources to meet our food and air quality challenges. Oceans cover more than 70% of Earth’s surface, which seems to be the logical place to address some of these challenges through seaweed farming in underwater forests.
Here are a few advantages offered by seaweed:
1) Seaweed absorbs carbon dioxide. Left alone, it sequesters the carbon at the bottom of the ocean, where it can remain for centuries.
2) Humans can eat some seaweed, such as dulse (Palmaria palmata). It is a nutrient-rich red macroalga that can be used in cooking. Icelanders use it as a snack food.
3) Seaweed can be used as a feed alternative for livestock freeing massive amounts of arable land.
4) Seaweed eliminates the need for watering and applying fertilizer or pesticides while reducing land deforestation.
5) Raising seaweed advances shellfish populations, a significant food source for many people throughout the world.
6) Seaweed reduces ocean acidification protecting ocean life.
7) Seaweed can be grown in areas where land farming is almost impossible. At present, the largest seaweed farm is in the Faroe Islands 62 degrees north latitude, only four degrees south of the Arctic Circle.
Seaweed farming in underwater forests is already practiced by 50 countries around the world today. Our point is that those who blame God for food shortages and environmental issues should realize that God has given us solutions, but He expects us to use them. Instead of using the oceans to dispose of wastes, we desperately need to stop the pollution and start building ocean farms to grow food.
— John N. Clayton © 2021
Reference: World Wildlife Magazine for Spring 2021 pages 14 – 19.