Sustainability –
Climate change: Finding Solutions

The immediate challenge for humankind is to provide solutions to safely absorb additional greenhouse gases, mitigate against dangerous climate change and to develop alternative energy options. The powerful forces at work in the sea can be harnessed to provide us with renewable energy. Offshore projects are being built to capture energy from wind, waves and ocean currents and use it to generate power. The oceans are also one of the largest natural carbon sinks, and already take up about a third of the carbon emitted by human activity. The possibility of sequestering more carbon in the ocean is being explored. Under the pressure of the deep sea, CO2 is denser than sea water, so it is possible to store it as a liquid. The additional acidity this might cause is a concern, but this can be buffered with calcium carbonate. Another option is biosequestration (the capture and storage of CO2 in biological organisms) in algae. Algae is used to recycle industrial emissions and turn them into oils, which can be used for fuel or to produce plastics, and meal, which canbe used as biomass for electricity production. Both oil and meal can also be used for livestock feed.