It’s a wispy red seaweed that can cut cattle methane emissions by 50, 80 even 98%.
The climate crisis can feel overwhelming, a problem so vast and so urgent that meaningful solutions seem perpetually out of reach. But what if some of the most powerful fixes were hiding in plain sight, found not in the halls of government or the boardrooms of industry, but in a patch of ocean seaweed?
Methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gases on the planet, and livestock are one of the biggest sources of methane emissions, responsible for more atmospheric warming potential than the entire oil and gas industry combined. For years, the problem seemed intractable. Then Joan Salwen came along.
A former high-powered business consultant turned entrepreneur, Salwen stumbled onto a discovery that would redirect her life entirely: a red seaweed called Asparagopsis taxiformis, fed to cattle in tiny amounts, can dramatically reduce the methane they produce, in some cases by more than 90%.
Armed with little more than curiosity, determination and a willingness to cold call some of the world’s leading scientists, Salwen built a company called Blue Ocean Barns and set out to bring her solution to scale.
In this documentary special, veteran science journalist Miles O’Brien travels to a land-based seaweed farm on the coast of Baja, California, to cutting-edge research laboratories at UC Davis and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and all the way to Australia, where low-methane beef is already showing up on the menu at a major burger chain.
Along the way, O’Brien meets the researchers racing to refine the science, the dairy farmers willing to try something new and the regulators standing in the way.
Joan Salwen’s journey is one of stubborn optimism in the face of long odds, and it may be closer to a breakthrough than anyone expected.
Go behind the scenes with host Elise Hu
The “Resolve to Solve with Miles O’Brien Podcast” is the official companion podcast of the documentary series.
In this podcast episode, Miles takes this opportunity to recount his decades-long friendship with the innovator behind this solution, Joan Salwen.
Elise asks about the obstacles keeping this solution from widespread implementation, and Miles explains the challenges regarding classification and FDA approvals in the United States.
