Thinking of blue water MIT Technology Review

The names of many companies and new technologies created to address the effects of climate change on marine ecosystems can spark tremendous action on the high seas. WaveKiller it uses compressed air systems to create “walls” of bubbles up to 50 meters thick, to protect against wear and to contain debris and oil spills. The beginner The solar barge is Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch NGO that collects marine debris spread across rivers in Southeast Asia before reaching the sea. Saildrone and WasteShark build and deploy fleets of autonomous drones to transport them to the oceans, collecting meteorological and marine data in the first case and a trash can in the second.

This sample represents increasingly diverse (often threatening) approaches to tackling marine degradation, a diversity that is constantly needed as climate change threatens the health of the world’s oceans on many different fronts. Carbon emission levels are warming the temperature of air and water, and as a result, polar ice is melting so fast NASA it is estimated that the global sea level will rise by half a centimeter per year by 2100.

To meet the challenges of warming, rising seas is key to global sustainability on multiple fronts, but both are particularly tough. One is coastal habitats: as the world’s coasts recede and degrade, the homes and livelihoods of three-thirds of the world’s inhabitants living on its coasts are unlikely to change in this generation. The second is the global food supply. In light of the economic downturn caused by the global Covid-19 pandemic, the exponential growth in global trade and protein consumption has pushed ocean transportation and commercial fishing to increasingly unsustainable levels.

Growing consumer demand and systemic failures to recycle and manage solid waste add 8 million tons of plastic today to 150 million tons in our oceans, Ocean Conservancy. Plastic ocean waste is an immediate challenge for easy sustainability – from aquaculture to tourism in various industries, and a long-tail threat to the world’s ecology as ocean tides turn plastic waste into food chains. That is, in an area where the broad portfolio of technology-enabled responses is growing, starting with the aforementioned bubble walls and the fleet of drones that cut waste. new polymers that dissolve in seawater, through sensors and AI-enabled analytics to manage information and vision on maritime trade activities.

But much more is needed — the spread of technology, more investment in innovation, more regulation, and government oversight — to effectively mitigate the rise of ocean plastics and many other threats to the world’s oceans.

In this context, MIT Technology Review Insights, a custom content program for MIT Technology Review, is embarking on a global research initiative to clean up our oceans economy to assess how new “blue economy” technologies and solutions are being deployed to reduce carbon in the sea. emissions, and increased sustainability in marine industries. This project will culminate in the publication of the “Blue Technology Barometer” to quantify the shipments of containers and port logistics in the emerging coastal economies that will create and effectively develop important technologies and solutions among the world’s coastal economies. illegal, unreported and unregulated activities.

The barometer will assess these efforts in more than 50 coastal countries and territories worldwide, and will classify them using an econometric model anchored in a broad set of data sources and forecasts. This model and research methodology will be based on work by MIT Technology Review Insights Green Future Index—Our global ranking of the progress and potential of decarbonization — and will form an important complement to the broad portfolio of holistic research projects that examine the role of technology in promoting sustainable development.

The barometer will examine national and transnational efforts to address technologies, regulations, and trade solutions that address climate change and reverse damage to marine environments and the cryosphere. Through an assessment of the intersection of innovative thinking and action, the Barometer aims to highlight how coastal economies are working to ensure tomorrow’s blue.

This content was created by Insights, a custom content from the MIT Technology Review. It was not written in the editorial board of the MIT Technology Review.