Temperatures are rising along with sea levels, making our fight against Climate Change feel that much more desperate.

Scientists are hard at work though, exploring big-picture ideas alongside the small everyday changes we can all make.

Futuristic-sounding plans like reducing the sunlight hitting our planet and sucking carbon out of the air are in play as people around the world try and buy time.

While those ideas could all make a big difference in the future, some climate engineers might have found a more immediate solution.

As reported in The Wall Street Journal reports, at least a dozen startups are experimenting with supercharging the world’s oceans into absorbing even more carbon than they already do — an approach which, once set into motion, could let nature take care of the rest.

“The ocean basically does the work for us,” Tom Green, CEO of the seawater carbon removal firm Vesta, told the WSJ.

If the thought of pushing more carbon into the ocean seems like a bad idea to you, it’s understandable.

But it’s important to understand that the ocean already absorbs 25 to 30 percent of all atmospheric carbon. And while they are certainly being pushed to the brink by the excessive emissions of humans, the plan isn’t to just ask them to do more, but to remove the carbon as well.

For example, one startup is using an electrochemical technique to remove carbon from the water which would ultimately allow the oceans to safely store more of the greenhouse gas the natural way.

In fact, they are theorizing that up to one million metric tons could safely be stored using this technique, which is four times as much as the entire carbon removal industry has accomplished to this point.

Vesta, another firm, is trying a different method: dissolving sand and mixing it with olivine, a common mineral that exists in seawater already. That process will kickstart a similar process to remove carbon safely.

That brings up another question: what happens to the carbon once its removed?

As of now a couple of options exist: either packing it up and burying it in the middle of nowhere to be dealt with another day or turned into solid material that can be used in construction and other projects.

Scaling abilities remain to be seen. The current impact of the technology is modest at best, with Vesta reporting the successful removal of just 6,000 metric tons over the course of a few years. Increased funding could impact that in the future, though.

Carbon scientists believe that billions of tons need to be removed annually to have the kind of impact that could make a difference in climate change, but the hope is that is multiple techniques can be proven successful, they can work together toward the goal of zero carbon.

In the meantime, companies will fight for more funding and look for ways to make a continued difference day by day and hope for a true sea change.

If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read a story that reveals Earth’s priciest precious metal isn’t gold or platinum and costs over $10,000 an ounce!