THERE IS NO PLANET ‘B’ is often shown at placards at environmental gatherings, BUT for one plant, the one that can solve our climate crisis, there are as many planet surfaces for it and for our needs as we make for it. HERE LIES THE SOLUTION.
Today, July 9th, 2025, there is a mass lobby of the UK Parliament for action on Climate Change.
Some 3,700 plus UK citizens, members of sister organisations within the Climate Coalition are attempting to overcome the power and influence of the fossil fuel industry and persuade our MPs to take decisive action on the existential threat that climate change is to humanity.
Carbon- di-oxide is imperceptible to us, yet it acts like a poison on our Earth by allowing it to absorb too much of the sun’s warming energy, which powers the development and continuance of life on this fragile and wonderful planet of ours.
To address the issues caused by fossil fuel reliance, we must approach solutions with equal commitment. Temperature control of our planet is vital for continuance of life in all its wonderous diversity and potential for our future.
To control CO2 in the air, (and thus temperature of the surface of the Earth), we have been provided with plants, which have shown their capability over the billions of years via the carbon cycle.
THERE IS ONE, TINY, SEEMINGLY IRRELEVANT, PLANT THAT HAS THE CAPABILITY IN OUR CONSTRUCTIVE AND PROPAGATIVE HANDS OF KEEPING THE PLANET ‘S ATMOSPHERIC CO2 LEVEL STABLE AND HENCE SAFE.
For the CO2 level to return to a life-enhancing and stable level there is a critical equation for carbon sequestration by the natural means of plants. We are putting so much carbon into the air now, more than 36 billion tons a year, that our ONLY HOPE is that of a plant that exhibits exponential growth in a short turnover period and which by its very restrictive habitat, means it is safe when inevitable escape happens.
Other exponential life forms that can do this and that are also small are bacteria, viruses, algae and fungi. All are too dangerous to use because they can run amok if they escape. DUCKWEED, however, is safe because it only grows on the surface of non-salty, non-moving, dirty water.
It is the ONLY plant that is capable, because of its size and short time of reaching maturity to replicate itself, of producing enough tonnage of captured carbon in a short space of time.
We will have to construct, across the globe, structures of whatever height we need to succeed. It is our ability to provide the extra equivalent Earth surfaces that will save us. We have created a problem, and it is our creative abilities that will allow us to solve this problem, in a practical manner, using nature itself.
The solving equation for the carbon sequestration by natural (plant) means is:
MASS X TIME X EQUIVALENT SURFACES OF THE EARTH
(the Whittaker equation)
Duckweed solves it. What we need at the mass lobby of the UK Parliament is not just how concerned we all are as citizens and how many people’s concerns we represent, BUT, HOW WE ARE GOING TO PRACTICALLY AND PRAGMATICALLY SOLVE THIS DANGEROUS SITUATION OF OUR
OWN MAKING, AS A SPECIES.
By growing duckweed and harvesting it at home or in the classroom, we can all learn through individual practical experience, what it is we must do on an industrialised level across the world. This needs to start somewhere and a new UK Government keen to show its caring and sustainable side, is a good place to start, in a nation that has shown a lead in important science and practical useful technology in the past. The UK has the chance here and now, to become not just CARBON ZERO, but to become the first CARBON NEGATIVE country in the world and start the reversal of the climate crisis that unchecked CO2 production from fossil fuels has caused.
We must do all we can to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels in the future and to sequester carbon in the long term by growing more trees, seagrass and mangroves worldwide. However, we must reduce CO2 now more rapidly than we have time available, except by safe, quick exponential, multilayered plant growth. TIME IS RUNNING OUT. THE ANSWER IS HERE.
Duckweed is the long-term solution too, because duckweed has so many other uses for us after carbon sequestration is managed by it.
Some varieties of duckweed are suitable for human consumption and indeed can contain more protein than soya. Many varieties are useful as animal feed.
Duckweed makes perfect biofuel.
Duckweed is good at removing phosphates, nitrates and sulphates from dirty used water.
THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT, THE FUTURE IS GREEN, THE FUTURE IS DUCKWEED.
Dr Jonathan Whittaker
