Seaweed! The Humble Organism Fighting Climate Change with Assoc. Prof. Alex Campbell (481)

Seaweed is not a weed. It is not even a plant, in many cases. And it has been around for roughly two billion years, long before dinosaurs or humans. But in the last few decades, more than half of the world’s great kelp forests have declined or disappeared, mostly because the ocean is warming too fast for them to keep up. The same organism that is a victim of climate change, however, could also become a significant part of the solution — by sequestering carbon, replacing fossil fuels in plastics and fuels, and even stopping cows from belching methane.

What seaweed actually is

Associate Professor Alex Campbell, a marine ecologist at the University of the Sunshine Coast, explains that what we call seaweed is technically a macroalga, not a plant. The red and green seaweeds share ancient common ancestors with land plants, but the brown seaweeds — the giant kelps that form underwater forests — belong to a completely different kingdom. There are at least 14,000 known species, and probably twice that many still undescribed. They range from microscopic filaments to giant kelp that can grow 50 metres in a single season, making them among the fastest-growing photosynthetic organisms on the planet.