The UN will decide if it will give permission to mine the deep sea in a few days. This is a pertinent except from my novel about diving to the mining area on a deep sea submersible:
Chapter 8
Manganese Nodules
The Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone
May 11, 2022
Ericka liked the tall athletic Trinidadian that huddled beside her as they both peered through the forward porthole of their snub-nosed submersible. Outside gelatinous orbs flashed bluish green of annoyance at the large metallic creature as it drifted down through the swirling clouds of bioluminescent plankton.
“It feels like we are descending through a blizzard of plankton.”
“We are,” said Anna Diva as the waters outside slowly shifted from light blue, to aqua, to deep purple and violet.
“Speaking of blizzards you better wriggle into your long johns and woolen hat. The water temperature will be just above freezing by the time we reach the bottom.”
“When will that be?”
“About an hour we are essentially in free fall.”
“So we have plenty of time to get to know each other.”
Diva flashed an infectious smile, “First tell me why you decided to write this story. Not too many people know about deep-sea mining.”
“Actually I heard about it on my first job. I was working for the Sierra Club at the Law of the Sea Conference in Caracas, but a Quaker group was paying half my salary. The problem was, the Sierra Club wanted to protect the oceans but the Quaker Group wanted to create something called ‘The Enterprise” an international entity established to exploit deep-sea mining ‘for the benefit of all mankind.’”
“That sounds familiar!”
“Yes that became the International Seabed Authority in Jamaica.”
“And they still have the same problem. They are set up to both protect the deep sea but to also manage the mining.”
“Classic case of the fox guarding the chicken coop.
It was fine as long as nobody had the money or was interested in mining the ocean. But now all the international companies think they can make a killing mining cobalt from the seafloor, rather than have kids dig it up by hand in places like Afghanistan and Congo.
Promoters say that deep-sea mining is the way we are going to manufacture all the cobalt-based electronics, batteries and electric cars that will usher in the new era of sustainable green technology. If not the era of nice green sawbucks!”
“But here, you can see for yourself. The bottom is just looming into view. There are the manganese nodules.”
“They look just like Idaho potatoes.”
“But each one is a conglomerate of manganese, iron, nickel and cobalt. And each one is also a million years old.”
“So they are certainly not sustainable.’’
“Absolutely not. And look what is between them. Cnidarians with eight foot long tentacles, holothurians that look like cuddly teddy bears, sharks that glow in the dark and glass sponges that have been around since the Stone Age.”
“How many of those species have been identified?”
“Less than ten percent. That is why scientists like me have been calling for a moratorium on deep sea mining, so we have the time to clarify the potential problems before we charge ahead.”
“But the head of the Seabed Authority calls your moratorium ‘anti-science, anti-intellectual anti-development and anti-international law.’”
“He would say that, he’s an international lawyer. The problem is that we don’t have enough science to make informed decisions about how to manage this activity.
Scrapping the ocean floor could permanently affect the bottom living communities of animals. But the greatest impact could come from the plumes of sediment caused by dumping mining tailings back into the sea. The toxic tailings can kill off zooplankton over large swaths of the Pacific Ocean and that is the biological pump that naturally sequesters millions of tons of carbon every year.
“Are comments like that the reason you are no longer invited to the Seabed’s workshops?”
“For sure!
So, ultimately it comes down to whether you think we should engineer the planet for the benefit of one species, ourselves, or for the benefit of the myriad of interconnected organisms that make up our life-supporting biosphere.
It is clear that the biosphere can exist quite happily without our species. The question is, can we exist without the biosphere?”
“I guess the only person who thinks we can is Elon Musk, that Uber Star Trek fan doesn’t care because he thinks he can fly away and screw up another planet.”
“This has been fun and here we are back in the sun at the surface.”
