A potent weapon vs global warming

To curb global warning, three major international efforts have been manifested in 2007. They are (1) the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to former US Vice-President Al Gore, for his advocacy and efforts on climate change, (2) the planting of more than one billion trees in 2007, and (3) the Bali (Indonesia) International Con-ference of December 2007 to start a two-year negotiating process aimed at produ-cing a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) disclosed recently that the world has surpassed a UN goal of planting one billion trees in 2007, to help slow climate change, led by huge forestry projects in Ethiopia and Mexico.

The global tree planting drive was inspired by Kenyan environmentalist and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, and is meant to counter defores-tation from logging and the burning of forests to create farmland. Trees soak up carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for stoking global warming.

UNEP reported that Ethiopia was the runaway leader, having planted 700 million trees in a national reforestation drive. Mexico was next with 217 million trees, Turkey 150 million, Kenya 100 million, Cuba 96.5 million, Rwanda 50 million, South Korea 43 million, Tunisia 21 million, Morocco 20 million, Myanmar (Burma) 20 million and Brazil 16 million. Indonesia had planned to plant 80 million trees in one day, before the Bali conference.

What surprisingly emerged at the Bali conference is that the “lowly seaweed is a potent weapon versus global warming.” A group of scientists at the Bali conference reported that more efficient cultivation methods of seaweed (and algae) could greatly boost pro-duction in nations, with long coastlines, such as the Philippines.

While the lion’s share of attention to carbon sinks has been on forests, the seaweed (algae) scientists say the world should look into the sea, where nearly eight million tons of seaweed and algae are cultivated every year.

The Encyclopae-dia Britannica, 1978 reports that “algae,” called the “grass of the sea” “have been estimated to carry on about “90 percent” of all photo-synthetic activity on earth.

In my book Manna from Heaven: Spirulina (microalgae) in the Philippines, 1994, I also had mentioned (on pages 3 to 4) that “throughout the world, algae ac-counts for more than 90 percent of the world’s photo-synthetic activity. This makes algae our planet earth’s richest source of oxygen.”

Spirulina (micro-algae), probably not known to many, is a powerful conserva-tion tool which helps to balance the ecological health of our planet. Besides purifying and gi-ving nourishment to our body in a num-ber of ways, Spiruli-na also adds to the quality and quantity of the life-sustaining air that we breathe, by returning oxygen to the atmosphere while consuming carbon dioxide as it grows.

One ton of Spirulina consumes 450 kg of carbon and releases 1.2 tons of oxygen while it is growing. A hectare of desert land, or any other non-productive or productive land, can produce 14 tons of Spirulina per year while pulling 6.3 tons of carbon dioxide out of the air and putting back 16.8 tons of oxygen.

The    Internet notes that Spirulina is the world’s “healthiest” superfood (wholefood micro-vegetable). The UN World Food Conference in 1974 issued a declaration that Spirulina is the “best food for tomorrow,” considering that only “1 kg” of Spirulina has the equivalent food nutritional value of “1,000 kgs” of assorted vegetables.

Spirulina is produced commercially, through modern aquaculture technology, and is marketed, worldwide, as a food supplement (nutraceutical) in the form of tablet or capsules. In Russia, Spirulina was patented as “medical food” in 1994, as it was found to be effective for radiation poi-soning (sickness) caused by the nuclear plant accident in Chernobyl, in 1986.

(The author is an 82-year old UN retiree with 27 year of service with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, and three years with the World Bank as project coordinator in Africa. He is currently the president of Spirulina Foundation of the Philippines, Inc. and dubbed “Father of Spirulina” in the Philippines. He is the author of the book “Manna from Heaven: Spirulina (Microalgae) in the Philippines,” 1994, and a former deputy commissioner, Philippine Fisheries Commission.)