The Problem: There is too much CO2 in the atmosphere and more mechanisms are needed to remove CO2 to stop climate change.
The Solution: Create fake whales to absorb marine-plants rich in CO2 and then sink them in oceans to sequester the gas.
Recent research has suggested that phytoplankton-eating whales could be key to solving climate change because the phytoplankton they consume are carbon-rich, meaning, for example, that a whale may consume 33 tonnes of CO2 in its lifetime. When the whale dies, its body sinks to the ocean floor, trapping that CO2 in the ocean, preventing its release into the atmosphere.
Helping to increase whale populations in the world’s oceans could therefore play a valuable role in reducing greenhouse gases and the effects of climate change. However, whale populations will take decades to recover and action on climate change is required immediately.
So I propose (in addition to helping wild whale populations recover!) that we create ‘fake whales’ to absorb carbon in the world’s oceans.
The fake whales would in effect be massive biodegradable bin bags that would be filled with plant mass farmed on oceans, which is then harvested and sunk out at sea.
Because of land scarcity, farming in the sea offers a better solution for the plant mass than farming on the land (water covers around 71% of the earth), and there are already proposals to create massive ocean-seaweed farms to absorb CO2. By combining such farms with the fake whales, the CO2 that is absorbed by the farms would then be permanently sequestered in the world’s oceans, following an established natural process.
Given the enormous size of the world’s oceans, there is ample space to sink the fake whales without causing massive changes to the local marine ecosystem, from the breakdown of biomass, and the process is very simple (the fake whales just need to be more dense than water to sink), unlike on land where plants have to be buried in the ground, a more expensive and complex process.
The project would be funded with carbon offset payments, but could also generate revenue from selling some of the produce grown on the farms in order to provide a second source of income. In addition, the marine farms could serve other beneficial purposes, such as absorbing and cleaning sewage and other industrial run-off into oceans and seas and providing physical barriers around marine reserves to prevent illegal fishing in those reserves, thereby helping key marine species and ecosystems to recover as well as helping to fight climate change.
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