A climate change hero

Whales are of great ecological value to mankind because they have a surprisingly large positive impact on the world's climate. The animals play an important role in binding CO₂ and producing oxygen. They feed phytoplankton through their excrements, which in turn collect CO₂ and produce oxygen. Phytoplankton produces about half of the oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere.

Now, if the population of large whales were to recover from its current level of 1.3 million back towards its original strength of 4-5 million, significantly more phytoplankton could grow. If whales could produce just 1% more phytoplankton in this way, they would remove 1.7 billion tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere - per year. That is about as much as Germany and Japan cause together.

These amazing connections are the subject of my motion design project "A climate change hero". The film is intended to provide insights into an area that receives little attention in the current climate crisis - but can contribute a lot to solving it.