Having Destroyed the Surface of This Lovely Planet Almost as Far as Possible, We’re Taking a Deep-Dive to the Ocean Floor

And why not? What better subject to ruin a lovely summer Sunday?

We are a poking around species, unable to resist a dibble here and a dabble there. Currently the dabble is five miles down on the ocean floor. Seems there are a lot of nodules down there, shaped rather like turds in a punch-bowl and surprise, surprise, these little hand-grenade sized little fellas are millions of years old, perhaps billions.

And isn’t it cool that these potato-sized black nodules just happen to be chock full of billions of tons of nickel, cobalt, manganese and other minerals our thirsty cell-phones, computers, electric car batteries, and other new-age scientific shit we really need at the moment.

And beside that, its really cool that no one can see what the hell we’re up to down there

Which is extra lucky, because it ain’t pretty. There are billions of life-forms down in the deep that we never knew were there because it’s dark, under incredible pressure (think the recent Titanic tourist vehicle) and not a place mankind wants to go. The stuff that lives down there thinks it’s perfect, though. And they represent an essential part of the surface food-chain, but c’mon, billions of tons of scarce minerals? No doubt trillions of dollars?

Down, down, down will come mechanical harvesters, up, up, up will come trillions of dollars. What’s not to like?

It seems what’s not to like has quite a past history. According to Guy Standing, author of The Blue Commons: Rescuing the Economy of the Sea, “all of us should be deeply alarmed. The environmental impact of deep-sea mining could be catastrophic. Massive machines will scour the ocean bed to pick up polymetallic nodules, destroying everything in their path and creating sediment plumes that can suffocate coral reefs and other organisms hundreds of miles from the mining site. Mining will damage the ocean’s ability to act as a carbon sink, accelerating global warming. And new research suggests the polymetallic nodules could contain radioactive substances, endangering human health.”

“Okay, but salt wasn’t supposed to be good for you either and now they think it’s fine. Carbon sinks, sediment plumes, radioactive substances? Yeah, save the whales, save those snails, gimme a rest. Just being a human is too much to handle these days.”

“Yeah, but…”

“…but, your ass. We’re here. We run the place. We do what we damn well please and it’s always worked out somehow. If we need that potato-sized stuff on the sea floor, we’re gonna get it. Case closed…”

“Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to ruin your Sunday and I understand it’s all too much to take into account. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see how it all turns out…”

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