I ran into this problem recently when I asked someone I know, who is in the coast guard, if they knew about alkaline hydrothermal vents. They said "Yes! But I j

I ran into this problem recently when I asked someone I know, who is in the coast guard, if they knew about alkaline hydrothermal vents. They said "Yes! But I just listen to the scientists, they draw a square on the ocean and say 'protect this' and we do it. Then I have to get a one-liner 'why should we spend money protecting this' from them and it's something like 'if there will be a breakthrough therapy for some disease then it might come from here'". I was kind of unsatisfied by the justification "we might find medicine" for something as amazing as alkaline hydrothermal vents, but I couldn't think of a better one myself. There doesn't seem to be a concept that earth's creativity is intrinsically valuable. If there was, we could just say "there are highly complex geo-chemical formations in this square" and, along with a brief spec of the size, age, and properties of the formations, that would be justification enough to protect them.