ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

The “Blue Revolution” that never was? Harvesting plankton to feed a hungry world, 1920s-1950s

• In Event: Metabolic Frontiers: Transforming Matter and Energy in the 20th Century

English Abstract

In response to resource depletions from the Great War, marine scientists turned to the oceans to find new sources of food, fuel, fertilizer, and medicine. They studied marine plankton as the essential link between sunlight and everything else that eats to live, including humans. This talk explores efforts by U.S. and British scientists to harvest and process marine plankton for human consumption, which they envisioned as a solution to emerging concerns of “overpopulation” and global famine after WWII.

Author

• Zi Yun Huang, University of Chicago