Mine, Mine, Mine… Or Not

 

One of mankind’s nasty proclivities – much worse today on an overcrowded planet with natural resources extracted now for centuries without much of an environmental care in the world – is to take resources in whatever manner we must… often rationalizing destructive ravaging or simply not knowing what we are doing. But we have advanced science, AI-driven computer simulations and centuries of what our blind practices have done to our planet. We have wildfires and hurricane patterns, flooding and drought we’ve never seen, massive oil spills in Alaska or the Gulf of Mexico in recent years. We know or should know better. We have corporate interests with one single relevant stakeholder: shareholders. They have no duty to society or the environment absent regulations requiring limits and imposing responsibility.

But we live is a society where powerful corporate interests, happily engaged in resource extraction, who use their massive wealth to circumvent regulation and to lobby for open access to resources with no or modest limited. We have nuclear waste oozing out of rusting barrels in Hanford Washington on the Columbia River, leaking barrels of DDT overwhelming ocean waters off Southern California (see my recent But Wait, There’s More: Forever and a Day Chemicals blog for details) and serial train derailments pouring toxicity into nearby lands, seeping into wells and aquifers.

Once we get passed our “drill for oil no matter the environmental damage” and believe that our new pursuit of “green technology” will fix the problem, there is always an unanticipated dark cloud in what seemed to be a vast silver lining. In this case, it is our quest for minerals, often rare earths, that just might decimate our environment at a whole new level. For specifics, please see my recent Assault with a Battery: A Hole in The Green Circular Economy blog. But there’s a place where those minerals must be… with a catch. It just might be in a sensitive ecosystem that is fully capable of spreading dangerous toxics far, wide and fast. It’s our oceans and seas, where somewhere “down there” is a treasure trove of all those lovely missing minerals and fossil fuels.

Indeed, as Associated Press writer, Dánica Coto, tells us in the April 1st article: “Pressure is mounting on an obscure U.N.-affiliated body based in Jamaica to hit pause on plans to potentially open the world’s deep seas to mining as companies push for permission to extract metals from seabeds in international waters… The International Seabed Authority on Friday [3/31] closed two weeks’ worth of negotiations without approving rules and regulations to oversee deep sea mining amid growing calls to pause, ban or place a moratorium on the quest to extract minerals from Earth’s watery depths that are used in green technology like electric car batteries.

“Though the first exploration licenses for deep sea mining were issued in 2001, the authority has yet to receive an application for actual mining. Individual countries and private companies can start applying for provisional licenses on July 10 if the United Nations body does not approve a set of rules and regulations by July 9, which experts say is highly unlikely since they believe the process could take several years… ‘We know what a crucial period … the council is in at the moment,’ Deryck Lance Murray, the authority’s representative for Trinidad and Tobago, said at the closing meeting on Friday [3/31].

“Scientists worry that deep sea mining would disrupt critical ecosystems that regulate climate change, and a growing number of countries are siding with them, including France, Spain, Germany, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic… ‘When in doubt, favor nature,’ Edward Aníbal Pérez, the authority’s representative from the Dominican Republic, said at the closing meeting on Friday.

“He noted that while he is aware of the importance of certain minerals given that mankind is on the brink of an energy transition, he said deep sea mining is not the sole alternative to meet growing demand… ‘It is clear there are doubts as to the effects that this activity might cause,’ he said…

“Demand for minerals including lithium, cobalt and nickel is expected to increase from less than 10 million metric tons to some 150 million metric tons between 2020 and 2050, according to Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.

“More than a dozen countries have officially called for a ban, pause or moratorium on deep sea mining, although it’s unclear how many other countries support such mining. And while there are 36 members on the authority’s council that have the power to award contracts to governments and private companies, only 12 votes in favor of deep sea mining are needed for it to pass, according to Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, a Netherlands-based alliance of environmental groups.

“In addition, the ongoing debate is on how the International Seabed Authority would approve or reject an application for a provisional license without guidance from a set of rules and regulations, Matthew Gianni, the coalition’s co-founder, told the Associated Press. He added that there is no agreement yet on what a provisional license would allow.”

But we all know that it is already happening. That mass of cloudy water pictured above is the result of an undersea explosion to open the sea floor for mineral extraction. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that such explosions are not particularly good for the relevant ecosystem. Think of how much damage has been done to the environment from offshore oil drilling. Dead sea life. Decimated environment that might never recover. Jobs destroyed. The worse part of all this is that while we know there will be some damage no matter where we dig under that mass of water… we just don’t know how much or what the medium and longer-term damage that we many inflict. We live in an era where dodging responsibility has become a national pastime.

I’m Peter Dekom, and those canaries in our many environmental coal mines are telling us that we are slowly strangling ourselves to death.