Sea to Soil

Current News Key Resources More News

Seaweed: an ocean-based climate solution

Watch this video on YouTube

CREDIT: OCEAN WISE

CURRENT NEWS

Jun 10 2022

The New York Times

The Johnny Appleseed of Sugar Kelp

By Charity Robey Photo: Johnny Milano , The New York Times

When Michael Doall was a teenager, he hated seaweed, and so did everybody else he knew on Long Island. It was an icky nuisance that brushed against your legs at the beach, fouled your fishing…

May 24 2022

NYBG

Sea To Soil: Using Kelp As A Soil Amendment

Native to the East Coast, sugar kelp may become an important tool to sustainably maintain plant health, given it is rich in important micronutrients and powerful bio-stimulating compounds. Join Sean Barrett and Edwina von Gal…

May 19 2022

Anthropocene

The Biggest Carbon Sink of All

By Mark Harris

One of the brightest hopes for sequestering carbon lies in the darkest place on earth: the abyssal depths of the deep ocean. For millennia, dead plants and animals have sunk to the bottom of the…

Mar 11 2022

THE CONVERSATION

Kelp won’t help: why seaweed may not be a silver bullet for carbon storage after all

By John Barry Gallagher Photo: Shutterstock

Over the last few years, there’s been a lot of hope placed in seaweed as a way to tackle climate change. The excitement stemmed from studies suggesting seaweed could be scaled up to capture and…

Sep 19 2021

MIT Technology Review

Companies hoping to grow carbon-sucking kelp may be rushing ahead of the science

By James Temple Photo: Getty Images

In late January, Elon Musk tweeted that he planned to give $100 million to promising carbon removal technologies, stirring the hopes of researchers and entrepreneurs. A few weeks later, Arin Crumley, a filmmaker who went…

Jun 28 2021

Sierra

Can Farming Seaweed Put the Brakes on Climate Change?

By Heather Smith Illustration: Peter and Maria Hoey

Seaweed has been removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for at least 500 million years. Recent studies suggest that wild seaweed continues to do humanity a solid by sequestering 173 million metric tons annually. The…

May 19 2021

Sea Grant

Seaweed is About to Blow Your Climate Change Mind

By Heather Kramp

Seaweed is also eaten by humans all over the world and its popularity in the U.S. is growing. Rich in protein and vitamins and minerals like calcium, iron, folic acid, and vitamin K, studies have…

Apr 01 2021

THE CONVERSATION

Move over, corn and soybeans: The next biofuel source could be giant sea kelp

By Diane Kim, Ignacio Navarrete and Jessica Dutton Photo: Maurice Roper

Giant kelp, the world’s largest species of marine algae, is an attractive source for making biofuels. In a recent study, we tested a novel strategy for growing kelp that could make it possible to produce…

Mar 01 2021

NPR

‘Run The Oil Industry In Reverse’: Fighting Climate Change By Farming Kelp

By Fred Bever Photo: Fred Bever/Maine Public

In the race to stall or even reverse global warming, new efforts are in the works to pull carbon dioxide out of the air and put it somewhere safe. One startup in Maine has a…

Sep 04 2020

TIME

The Ocean Farmers Trying to Save the World With Seaweed

By Mélissa Godin Photo: Melissa Renwick/Time

In a cove in Bamfield, a coastal community in British Columbia, Canada, Louis Druehl steers his boat, The Kelp Express, a mile along the mountainous coastline. For 51 years, this boat has taken Druehl to…

Jul 04 2019

Harvard University

How Kelp Naturally Combats Global Climate Change

By Sylvia Hurlimann Photo: Hannah Zucker

When we think of kelp, we conjure up images of magical underwater forests. Recent research, however, suggests that in addition to creating beautiful habitats, macroalgae such as kelp play a large role reducing the effects…

Jul 31 2017

THE CONVERSATION

How farming giant seaweed can feed fish and fix the climate

By Tim Flannery Photo: Daniel Poloha/shutterstock.com

Bren Smith, an ex-industrial trawler man, operates a farm in Long Island Sound, near New Haven, Connecticut. Fish are not the focus of his new enterprise, but rather kelp and high-value shellfish. The seaweed and…

KEY RESOURCES

Lazy Point Farms

05/24/22

Lazy Point Farms are created to provide the structural, educational, and logistical support needed to advance the future of sugar kelp farming on Long Island. Whether you are an aspiring kelp farmer, an existing shellfish…

MORE NEWS

ACS

Seaweed as a rich new source of heart-healthy food ingredients

07/20/11

In an article that may bring smiles to the faces of vegetarians who consume no dairy products and vegans, who consume no animal-based foods, scientists have identified seaweed as a rich new potential source of…