![]() Q: What is your role with the Project Drawdown Science team?Ī: I bring to Project Drawdown a very broad expertise and knowledge base, and I hope one of the values I offer is to help periodically identify some of the cross-connections and synergies that my teammates may not have yet considered. Here, Tina explains why Project Drawdown is the perfect next step in her long and illustrious career, describes how she once found herself clinging to a ship’s mast high above the ocean, vouches for the therapeutic value of punching clay, and more. Tina comes to Project Drawdown with more than two decades of experience in the environmental nonprofit arena, including with The Bay Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). An environmental scientist with a background in cross-disciplinary research and engagement at the science/policy interface, she is passionate about applying science to benefit society. Tina Swanson joined the Drawdown Science team as a visiting scholar in June 2023. When there is less pollution to tax, the process benefits not only the environment but also the financial well-being of the community doing the restoration.This article is the sixth in a series introducing the members of Project Drawdown’s science team. When fewer greenhouse gases are emitted, less pollution is created. ![]() This approach creates a financial incentive for restoration and conservation projects by helping to alleviate federal and state carbon taxes aimed at discouraging the use of fossil fuels. One method of slowing climate change impacts is to incorporate coastal wetlands into the carbon market through the buying and selling of carbon offsets. When we protect the carbon in coastal systems, we protect healthy coastal environments that provide many other benefits to people, such as recreational opportunities, storm protection, and nursery habitat for commercial and recreational fisheries. ![]() So protecting and restoring coastal habitats is a good way to reduce climate change. When these systems are damaged, an enormous amount of carbon is emitted back into the atmosphere, where it can then contribute to climate change. The bigger picture of blue carbon is one of coastal habitat conservation. The carbon found in coastal soil is often thousands of years old! Most of the carbon taken up by these ecosystems is stored below ground where we can't see it, but it is still there. These coastal systems, though much smaller in size than the planet's forests, sequester this carbon at a much faster rate, and can continue to do so for millions of years. Sea grasses, mangroves, and salt marshes along our coast "capture and hold" carbon, acting as something called a carbon sink. ![]() What you may not have heard is that our ocean and coasts provide a natural way of reducing the impact of greenhouse gases on our atmosphere, through sequestration (or taking in) of this carbon. You have also heard that these gases are changing the world's climate, and not in a good way. You have probably heard that human activities emit (or give off) something called carbon dioxide, which contains atmospheric carbon. Have you ever heard of blue carbon? Chances are the answer is no, but perhaps you know more than you realize.īlue carbon is simply the term for carbon captured by the world's ocean and coastal ecosystems. Something that has a significant effect on our daily lives and is stored within the largest system of water on our planet must be a household name, right? Not necessarily. guide that makes salt marsh restoration eligible for international carbon markets research that documents carbon storage capabilities in the marsh workshops and school curricula on the topic and newsletters and technical assistance. Efforts thus far have produced the first-ever U.S. These markets balance projects that feature heat-trapping emissions with contributions that take carbon out of the atmosphere. NOAA’s National Estuarine Research Reserves and their partners are working to make wetlands conservation and restoration profitable while lessening greenhouse gas emissions through blue carbon financial markets.
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