An Environmental Article from All-Creatures.org

Cloak and desecrate: The specter of deep-sea mining

From Ellen Crist, Earth Tongues, a part of The Ecological Citizen Group
April 2024

The deep-sea mining industry has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into constructing the gigantic machinery and technological assemblages to scour the depths. They saw no reason to delay and ascertain if the world is on board in the first place with their looting the seabed. With characteristic corporate insolence, they have manufactured the war machinery that will carry it out.

With no public debate and scant publicity, deep-sea mining has gotten quietly underway in recent years. Exploratory mining contracts have been granted for over 1 million square kilometers of seabed in international waters, while the International Seabed Authority—the official UN body regulating ocean “resources”—deliberates how to cloak the enterprise in sustainababble attire.(Apparently, exploratory mining does not require regulations to proceed.)

The deep-sea mining industry has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into constructing the gigantic machinery and technological assemblages to scour the depths. They saw no reason to delay and ascertain if the world is on board in the first place with their looting the seabed. With characteristic corporate insolence, they have manufactured the war machinery that will carry it out.

What is targeted: the polymetallic nodules of the ocean floor, materials of hydrothermal vents, and minerals and metals of seamounts and continental shelves. Before glazing over these apocryphal places of the deep blue, please be apprised that they are all old-growth habitats of rich and largely unknown life.

What does the deep-sea mining industry, and the nation states sponsoring its rampage, want to purloin from these ancient habitats? Cobalt, copper, gold, silver, manganese, nickel, rare earths, and more, all the ingredients required for the high tech industry, the military-industrial complex, and the “green economy.” The latter (you guessed it) is getting all the publicity, with the “new gold rush”being parlayed as necessary for saving humanity from climate change.

This recent development in the extractivist machine should not be underestimated, nor if we can help it be allowed to manifest as the fait accompli that its perpetrators are angling for. The fact that even a news outlet as incisive as The Guardian entertained the official framing of ocean mining as a “lesser evil” than climate catastrophe is baffling and heartbreaking. For sure, it is an indicator of how far down the slippery slope of muddled reasoning society is sliding. Given the international political track record to date, and how far along climate breakdown we already are, can anyone believe that deep-sea mining is going to save the world from climate change, or, for that matter, even contribute a little to saving the world from climate change?

....

Please read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE.

---

Return to Environment Articles
Read more at Fishes and Other Sea Animals Articles