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Comment by TulliusCicero | Hacker News Reader

> In general, says Salomon, small is beautiful when it comes to kelp farming. “I worry about the scale at which people are imagining this might need to be done for it to be profitable,” says Salomon. “I think at a small, artisanal scale, where the objectives are to support local communities, local industries, local sovereignty, it can be a good thing, locally. But as soon as it’s commercialized at an industrial scale, I think there can be ecological and important social costs.”

Basically, "this thing is good as long as we don't produce enough to actually make a difference".

This attitude is so stupid and self defeating.

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Local scale makes sense in light of the concerns about disease and propagation of invasive algae though. It also could be seen as positive from a cultural standpoint, as the culture of seaside towns could be retained by keeping some of the population in aquaculture, instead of being moved into the same jobs that are found pretty much everywhere. Having 'seaweed harvester' as a role maintains a cultural element that might otherwise be lost, as fishing fleets modernise and globalise.

Another component is that it could strengthen ties between local communities, particularly between local agriculture and aquaculture. Those doing the kelp farming would probably have a few contacts with farmers interested in using kelp for animal feed, such as for the methane reduction proposal, and building a tie. They might also have other aquaculture employment, like clearing algal blooms, which could then be sold as fertaliser. I personally prefer that scene to something that's been financially instrumentised to death, has no local component, and is going to be lobbying to have the rules made its way instead of fitting in with pre-existing kelp exploitation by those with folio rights.

I have nothing against local, artisanal production. I just also realize that small scale production doesn't actually work by itself if your objective is feeding humanity.

> this thing is good as long as we don't produce enough to actually make a difference

This is business, not charity. Suitable locations in the coast that aren't occupied yet by other sectors and are affordable are more rare than a silver unicorn and they are vanishing by climate change. This are cold climate species and like 90% of the seaweed forests in N Spain vanished in 20 years by warmer water for example.

Manipulating the offer and keeping it low is how you can sell your product at a high price and recover the investment plus a benefit. Is done by everybody and their grandma since thousands of years so, maybe is not so stupid.

There are Chinese type traditional seaweed production based in brown algae, and Japanese type seaweed production based in red algae. They aren't the same products and don't taste the same. Both coexist by targeting different customers. In fact a part of the Palmaria "Chinese" seaweed is cultured to feed crabs, that are the real product

Spoken like a true capitalist.

"There's money to be made here. We must allow the corporations to take over and build 10,000-acre monoculture farms in the ocean. This is the only way we can make a difference"

Who gives a shit if it's capitalists or the government or an NGO? Without sufficient scale, you won't make a difference.

Tiny amounts of expensive foods aren't gonna make a dent in the status quo. Keeping things small means planning to fail.

"Yes, solar and wind farms are good, but only if we make very few of them, by local artisans. Wouldn't want dreaded industry to actually help save the planet."

On the one hand I have sympathy for your point : If we're going to do something, let's make it so it makes a difference. Simple point. Industry is what allows (most of) humanity to be fed and roofed, which is apparently something we like.

But you can't just deride people for being concerned about industry since industry, or more generally, the immense energy requirements needed for (and wasted by) an (increasingly less) western lifestyle, is is the source of the problem in the first place. Now, such an amount of energy expenditure is not sustainable at a global scale. Of course we need newer/greener technologies to save us from ending up like the proverbial boiled frog but we also need to understand how we got into that place. Capitalism, whether good or bad it doesn't matter, has a logic to it and it has externalities. I find that people who pretend those externalities are a minor problem/don't exist are the ones who benefit the most from the actual status quo and who will staunchly defend against changing anything in their way of life. That's when you get lame attacks about wanting to live a cave because you say SUV are energetically absurd and should be taxed to oblivion.

When you make something at scale, when you change scale you have well, scale issues. What happen when all your soil can't pump out the water ? What happens where there is no space available for pollinating insects ? Suburbia is an attempt to scale housing after all. Not great imho.

Another problem we have thing is that solar and wind energy production don't just fall into your hands, there's a lot of fossil fuel baked in their making. Are we sure that the energy harvested by a solar panel over its lifetime recoup what it has needed for production ? Maybe, I have no idea. (If someone know and can chime in, I'd be interested) So you don't just get to just go big brrrr and forget

That was my point. Thanks for reading.

> But you can't just deride people for being concerned about industry since industry, or more generally, the immense energy requirements needed for (and wasted by) an (increasingly less) western lifestyle, is is the source of the problem in the first place.

The point is that seaweed is actually less intensive than other forms of agriculture, though, so replacing other industrial agriculture with seaweed agriculture is a net decrease in intensity.

It's similar to EV's: you still need to damage the environment to produce and operate them, but they cause less damage than ICE vehicles, so substitution is a net win.

Another comparison would be when people complain about building tall apartment/condo towers "hurting the environment". Sure, it probably does hurt compared to doing nothing, but the alternative isn't nothing, it's lower density sprawl that hurts nature far more. This is why being opposed to urban density is a fundamentally anti-environmental position.

Same deal for seaweed scaling. If you're opposed to scaling up the thing that hurts the environment less, then you're in favor of hurting the environment.

Ok, thanks for explaining your point a little further.

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