I want you all to close your eyes now
imagine you're on a vacation in
Antarctica where was just 65 degrees
last month just you and your family
nobody there to bother you now imagine
you're back here in Florida all
hurricanes are now category five or more
storms imagine the damage that you
caused to your community or your family
now finally I want you to imagine a
world where millions of people are
living without water as all the lake
beds along the equator started drying up
these countries becoming just an
extension of the Sahara Desert you can
open your eyes now
but this is what our future holds if we
continue down this path of negligence
from other earth sea levels are rising
since 1880 our oceans have risen more
than eight inches and just three of
those were in the last 25 years the
effects of this rising ocean are being
felt by nations all around the world in
Bangladesh they're losing an area the
size of Manhattan to the rising ocean
every single year
this phenomenon is causing more than
700,000 people to be displaced and in
Mozambique they just had the nation's
worst cyclone in history causing more
than over a hundred thousand people to
leave their homes but the effects of the
rising ocean aren't limited to these
faraway countries they can be seen right
here in Florida the annual report from
the Virginia Institute of Marine Science
has stated that sea levels are on arise
along all locations on the Atlantic and
Gulf Coast's that's us
in Miami every time there's a high tide
they face constant flooding this water
rises up from out of the ground
mixing in drinking water and wastewater
creating a knee-high fun of feces
infested water along roads and homes as
you can imagine this makes life pretty
miserable and just a few years ago we
got hit by hurricane Emma
the storm caused the most flooding we
had seen in over a hundred and fifty
years and even here in Jacksonville we
faced $85 eighty five million dollars in
property damages the climate crisis is
starting to get out of hand and if we
continue to do nothing there will be
nothing to stop it
however there are solutions plans like
the green New Deal and the Paris
agreement make promises of successfully
combating climate change they do this by
implementing policies such as reducing
the amount of carbon emissions we put
out by changing our fuel source from
fossil fuels to solar and wind but there
is a problem with these plans they do
not take advantage of new and better
technologies new technologies such as
next generation nuclear reactors or
biofuel processing plants using algae to
create ethanol are not getting enough
attention even though they could be very
important in our fight against climate
change other than changing the way we
get our energy there have also been
plans to directly take this carbon out
of the atmosphere there are many ways to
do this the most popular of which are
mass planting trees or creating machines
that will take this carbon out Ethiopia
took the first route they implemented a
plan called Green Legacy which planted
over 350 million trees in just one day
while other countries such as the US or
investors like Bill Gates have invested
in technologies such as these giant fans
that will suck up the carbon from the
atmosphere and store it and while these
technologies are great I believe there's
a cheap and easy alternative right in
front of us algae is my proposed
solution to climate change now I know
what you're thinking algae tech green
stuff in my pond yes I'm talking about
that green stuff in your pond
specifically a species known as giant
kelp you see algae is great at capturing
carbon for a number of reasons first
algae is 100 percent photosynthetic
which means that it can use all parts of
the algae to capture carbon and use it
to grow next algae can grow extremely
fast reaching its peak within just four
weeks and finally for every ton of algae
grown there are nearly two tons of
carbon removed from the atmosphere
all these factors added up to make algae
into a great tool for combating climate
change but algae is not without its
disadvantages
if grown too close to the shore algae
can harm local biodiversity or if grown
out of control these algae can cause
harmful algal blooms that create toxins
that can harm us as humans at my
nonprofit artfully green we are working
on solutions around these problems
recently I read an article about Asian
seaweed farmers who in order to get
around strict agricultural laws they
needed to grow their seaweed far away
from the shore
you see seaweed like giant kelp the
to be grown on something their ingenious
solution was to put these ropes out into
the ocean and plant seaweed along these
robes after four weeks they would pull
these ropes back in and harvest their
seaweed there are many benefits to using
this technique first it creates an
ecosystem where the algae is grown
this increases biodiversity where it was
previously impossible next and most
importantly this technique allows for
the algae to be grown far away from the
shore this minimizes the risk of a
harmful algal bloom and harm to local
biodiversity but I'm not here to tell
you that algae is our definitive only
solution to climate change but I do
believe that finding a new use for this
old enemy rather than using the methods
of yesterday to solve the problems that
we face today will provide us with a
better opportunity in our fight against
climate change and I believe that algae
is a good first step for Humanity thank
you
[Applause]