*[Enwl-eng] SFB Weekly: Blue carbon – the hidden CO2 sink that could save the planet
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Sat Nov 6 13:17:00 MSK 2021
SFB Weekly: Blue carbon – the hidden CO2 sink that could save the planetView this email in your browser
A solutions-oriented weekly digest from Struggles From Below
06/11/21
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IMPORTANT: LAST CALL FOR PATRONS!
Dear reader,
We've come to an inflection point here at SFB headquarters: plough on in the face of economic uncertainty or call it quits and move on to pastures new. In advance of such a tricky choice, we've decided to make one last call for patronage in a final bid for the publication to stand on its own feet financially. So if you get any value out of the service we provide, we hope you will consider becoming one of our sustaining patrons – whether its enough for a monthly takeaway, a sandwich or even just a coffee, any little you can afford to spare would be so gratefully appreciated.
In exchange, we pledge that if we cross the £500/month-mark, we'll publish a new longread or photo essay every week along with the newsletter. And if we hit £1000/month, we'll launch a new solutions-focused podcast.
Of course, we'll keep you informed of our decision in the coming weeks. But whatever happens, we wish you a heartfelt thanks for your all your time and support so far!
Ollie
Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Struggles From Below
Become an SFB Patron
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In our top read this week, the Guardian's Karen McVeigh takes a look at 'blue carbon': the hidden CO2 sink that pioneers say could save the planet.
Coastal wetlands such as mangroves forests are powerful carbon sinks. That is, they suck up carbon dioxide from the air to store in their roots and branches, as well as the sediment that collects around them. They do this so well that they can store up to 10 times more carbon than forests.
And unlike “green carbon” rainforests, which store carbon in biomass, and therefore release it when the trees die, mangroves store most of the carbon in their soil and sediment. If undisturbed, it stays there for millennia.
This superpower means “blue carbon” (the sequestration and storage of carbon by ocean ecosystems) is gaining attention in the race towards net zero. And the “big three” stores of blue carbon – mangroves, salt marshes and seagrass – are suddenly urgent new areas of conservation.
As much as a fifth of the emissions cuts we need to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5C will need to come from the ocean, according to the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy. Protecting and restoring seagrass, mangrove and salt marsh ecosystems – which account for more than 50% of all carbon storage in ocean sediments – could help absorb the equivalent of as much as 1.4bn tons of emissions a year by 2050, it says.
These ecosystems are some of the most threatened in the world by coastal development – damaged by farming, harmful fishing practices and pollution – so protecting and restoring them is expensive.
Enter the carbon-offset market. Some conservation groups are selling carbon credits to fund their work. For example, Verra, a non-profit organisation based in the US that administers the world’s leading carbon-credit standard, estimates that the carbon emissions mitigated by the mangroves of Colombia's Cispatá conservation project to be almost 1m tonnes over three decades – the equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions from the annual mileage of 214,000 cars.
The carbon-offset market remains controversial. Not all schemes are reliable. A Guardian investigation earlier this year found several carbon schemes paid for by logging firms were selling carbon credits based on keeping forests standing, thereby allowing other logging to continue.
However, for ocean scientists alarmed at the rate these ecosystems are disappearing, blue carbon could be used as leverage – to restore and conserve parts of the ocean that might not otherwise get much attention.
Read the article
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What we're reading:
COP26: Financiers vow to shift investments from fossil fuels to renewables
The announcement, on day three in Glasgow, that financiers who control 40 percent of the world’s corporate assets, with a value of $130 trillion, are promising to set their future investments toward achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2050, is clearly a big deal. YALE ENVIRONMENT 360
COP26: Reducing deforestation and methane emissions take centre stage
Tuesday’s highlight at the Glasgow climate summit was the Declaration on Forest and Land Use, under which more than 100 leaders — from Russia to Brazil to Canada to Indonesia — pledged to end deforestation and land degradation by 2030. A second major announcement Tuesday, the pledge by 80 nations to join an initiative of the European Union and the United States to cut methane emissions by 30 percent during this decade, looks more auspicious. YALE ENVIRONMENT 360
COVID: new antibody treatment could offer up to 18 months’ protection against severe disease
A new treatment could soon help protect people from developing severe COVID. AstraZeneca has just released results from a phase 3 clinical trial – the final stage of testing before a drug is authorised – that suggest its new COVID treatment, AZD7442, is effective at reducing severe disease or death in non-hospitalised COVID patients. THE CONVERSATION
The regenerative revolution in food
Half of the world's land is used to grow our food. A new generation of 'carbon farmers' are making their land absorb greenhouse gases, rather than emitting them. BBC FUTURE
This concrete can eat carbon emissions
Concrete is responsible for more than four percent of all global CO2 emissions. In the race to find alternatives, some companies are using it to sequester CO2 instead. WIRED
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One to ponder:
Energy, and how to get It
All of us know people who have more energy than we do, but the science of the phenomenon is just coming into view. THE NEW YORKER
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Quote of the week:
"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it." – G.K. Chesterton
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Song of the week:
Eliphino - More Than Me
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That's it for today, folks. If you're enjoying this newsletter, please do forward it on to any friends who might be into it.
All the best,
Ollie
Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Struggles From Below
Copyright © 2019 Struggles From Below, All rights reserved.
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From: Struggles From Below
Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2021 10:00 AM
Subject: SFB Weekly: Blue carbon – the hidden CO2 sink that could save the planet
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