A powerful climate solution just below the ocean’s surface

They can bolster the coastlines, break the force of hurtling waves, provide housing for fish, shellfish, and migrating birds, clean the water, store as much as 5% of the world's carbon dioxide, and pump oxygen into the ocean, in part making it possible for life on Earth as we know it.

These miracle machines are not the latest shiny tech invention. Rather, they are one of nature's earliest floral creations: seagrasses. Anchored on the shorelines of every continent except Antarctica, these plants - and they are plants, not algae, that sprout, flower, fruit and go to seed - are one of the most powerful but unheralded climate solutions that already exist on the planet.

Restoring seagrass is one tool that coastal communities can use to address climate change, both by capturing emissions and mitigating their effects, which is among the topics being discussed as leaders in...