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> Critics, including environmentalist David Attenborough, say seabed mining is untested and has a largely unknown environmental impact. Google, BMW, AB Volvo, a

> Critics, including environmentalist David Attenborough, say seabed mining is untested and has a largely unknown environmental impact. Google, BMW, AB Volvo, and Samsung SDI have backed a call for a moratorium on deep-sea mining. > > Dr Sandra Schoettner, deep-sea biologist at Greenpeace, said: "Losing control of a 25-tonne mining machine at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean should sink the idea of ever mining the deep sea." Sheesh, I guess these particular environment activists can never allow anything new, since we don't know what impact it will have and any failure of any part of a system, no matter how repairable or minor, is ipso facto proof that the project is a disaster. This would be like completely writing off SpaceX after a Starship tank rupture in a launchpad test. The article seems to indicate that this project is being done responsibly, with oversight and caution. Things will go wrong (as they have), but this wasn't some sort of catastrophic failure like Deepwater Horizon or something. I'm curious to see if they can extract these minerals without doing widespread environmental damage, and I think they should at least be given a chance to prove it or not.

nerdponx 5y ago
My understanding is that marine ecosystems are interconnected and can be surprisingly sensitive, and that we humans depend on them mre than you'd think. It also makes sense to assume that deep-sea mining is damaging and disruptive by default. It therefore makes sense to be very very cautious about it. That's as far as I can wrap my head around it. Maybe there are people here with some expertise who can elaborate.
mienski 5y ago
You're really going for the straw-man argument here I see, there is a huge difference between launching a space ship and creating a new way to mine the earth and destroy the environment. I understand that they have this little catch-all: > GSR has said it will only apply for a mining contract if the science shows deep seabed minerals have advantages, from an environmental and social perspective, over relying solely on land mining. But I'm not going to hold my breath thinking that if they find a rich-enough deposit of minerals - that they wont suddenly discover enough "advantages" for the ocean to now be open to the same decimation as land mining has seen for many years.
- the-dude 5y ago
  This. And ocean is really scarce.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    Our planet has way more ocean than land. In what way is that scarce?
    - igetspam 5y ago
      I'll take the bait. Planets that are capable of sustaining human life are scarce. Putting aside the divisions on our maps, we have a total of one ocean. Since we have exactly one planet to live on and one ocean to sustain life, I'm gonna go ahead and call that pretty scarce. There's a massive amount of water but if we ruin that one ocean, I believe we all die. So now it's time for a judgement call: what is so valuable at that depth that you're comfortable having people poke holes in it hoping to determine the science is good and worth the risk?
      - TheAdamAndChe 5y ago
        From a life sustaining perspective, the most important thing the ocean does is absorb CO2 through oceanic churning and phytoplankton. Some might say that the ocean currents are important too because it transfers heat between the north and south, but it has stopped before and only caused greater temperature gradients, but life was still sustained. How would undersea mining put any of this at risk?
        hackily 5y ago
        I'd be fairly concerned if undersea mining waste or debris started killing off phytoplankton, perhaps by disrupting any of the delicate cycles such as phosphorus, or providing extra iron which may lead to runaway algal blooms or such, and subsequent algal death and oxygen shortage. Since the mining is so deep, we don't know if these effects will stay localized, or if undersea currents will dilute these effects, or anything. It should be valid to question what harm there could be. Nature is quite fragile, and we should know that, especially seeing what harm industrial processes have had on the atmosphere. On the other hand, it's quite possible that undersea mining may produce less harm than surface mining, where waste gets dliuted far enough to have less impact. Maybe similar to how salmon farming has to be done where there's a strong enough current to dilute the waste.
dsign 5y ago
I can't wrap my head around environmentalists. If they really understand that anything we do perturbs the environment--and it does--, why are they not openly advocating for evacuating all humans from Earth as soon as possible and creating a full-planet environmental reserve? It's not like there is not enough matter in the solar system to create our own lush ecosystems...
- DanBC 5y ago
  We need manganese. We currently get that from open cast mines. Those are pretty terrible, so we need to look at ways of making them not awful, or at alternatives. Deep sea mining doesn't really do much for either. Nodules are never going to provide enough to meet demand, so mining nodules doesn't get rid of open cast mining. We don't know what the impact is of mining deep sea nodules, but it's likely to be pretty bad. If open cast mining had a history of attempting to fix the mines (eg re-wilding) when they'd finished we could trust them a bit more when they want to mine new untouched wilderness. But they mostly don't have that history. EDIT: for an example of the harm already caused: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02242-y https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02242-y
  - horsawlarway 5y ago
    > Nodules are never going to provide enough to meet demand My understanding was that this one area is estimated to have more rare metals in these nodules than all land based deposits combined.
- FredPret 5y ago
  They think of humans as a plague. It’s a weird form of self-hatred. From a philosophical point of view, I wonder if this stems from the idea of “original sin” in Christianity.
- QuadmasterXLII 5y ago
  Try to remember that today you live in a world shaped by environmentalists: that’s why there are currently some rivers safe to swim in / not on fire, why the air isn’t filled with toxic levels of lead, why it’s ok to go outside without immediate sunburn
buran77 5y ago
> can never allow anything new, since we don't know what impact it will have When they say "we don't know the impact" it's on a range from "pretty bad" to "disastrous". Mining never had any kind of net positive impact on the environment so it's not a matter of "hey, maybe we actually help the fish and wildlife by mining here".
- stuff4ben 5y ago
  Humans as a whole have never had net positive impact on the environment either. Responsible deep-sea mining, with oversight and regulations in place should be allowed. Until we can determine the impact, I don't see why it should be banned outright.
  - j-pb 5y ago
    That's not how safety regulation works, where the burden of proof is on the potential offenders side. We don't allow random chemicals as food additives and drugs and recall them if they turn out to not be safe. We show that they're save before we allow them on the market.
    - stuff4ben 5y ago
      Exactly! How else do you prove deep sea mining is safe without trials like this?
      - j-pb 5y ago
        Ecological surveys. Disturbing a delicate ecosystem by driving a roomba the size of a bulldozer through it is one of those, "that's obviously gonna fuck things up", things where you just need to look at prexisting scientific data. Much like the question: "is eating half a kilo of table salt a viable cancer treatment?"
  - carapace 5y ago
    > Humans as a whole have never had net positive impact on the environment either. It's not written in stone. Check out the story of the Loess plateu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loess_Plateau#Agriculture_and_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loess_Plateau#Agriculture_and_... We destroyed it (it looked like a Lunar landscape) and then we regenerated it. > Until we can determine the impact, I don't see why it should be banned outright. You're inverting the logic: you don't set fire to the house and then "determine the impact" afterward. Keep in mind that the cure for cancer isn't down there, cheap fusion isn't down there, the fountain of youth isn't down there. We don't really need those minerals, we just want to make money. But the time when profit was more important than living healthy oceans has passed, surely?
carapace 5y ago
> I think they should at least be given a chance to prove it or not. Why? What happens if they are not given that chance? I don't think there is any responsible way to mine the ocean. Not when Musk's rockets are about to open the "Final Frontier" for us. There is one (1) living planet in the entire known universe. But there are plenty of rocks and minerals and metal just floating around out there for the taking. No environment to damage, eh? (Well, I mean, the rockets pollute a bit. But overall they don't kill the oceans. That's the important bit.) You have to realize that it's not "environmentalists vs FOO", it's all of us vs. our own greed and stupidity. "The Earth!? That's where I keep all my stuff!" ~ the Tick
- xwolfi 5y ago
  But I'm sure the environment can adapt too. I mean, it's not like anyone cared about preserving species and ecosystems before we arrived, catastrophic events happened, population of animales died and arose, for billions of years. Billions. So we're the latest catastrophic event, big deal. The earth will adapt as it always has and at least we can try to discuss our impact, unlike an asteroid or a syberian forest fire.
  - fghthidudhmbdi 5y ago
    Earth will only be habitable for less than 1 billion more years. We do not have any evidence of abstractly intelligent life forms outside of human beings. There is not enough time left for another intellect to evolve. Like it or not, if we do not successfully become a space-faring species, all life known in the universe will be wiped out.
    - noxer 5y ago
      >all life known in the universe will be wiped out. Is that a problem for you? And why would it not come to existence again somewhere eventually? Its interesting to think about such stuff but it really should not have an impact on decisions we make today because it just not possible to affect a so distant future (thousands of years) in a meaning full way. Just imagine humans 2000 years ago what could they have possibly done that would have had a positive environmental effect today. And that's just 2000 years ago. If you apply this to mining the see floor. Do you seriously think that if we today decide that human should not do this that it wont be done in 2000 years? I think is far more likely it just pushed a little back in time an insignificant little, maybe one human life maybe even two who knows but in 4021 no one cares if it started in the year 2021 or 2121 that's for sure. Also if you want our species to become multi planetary then the only logical thing to do is to use all resources available achieve this as soon as possible. If we used up the resources or have way more humans and no spear resources no one is going to achieve it anymore.
bmitc 5y ago
When have environmentalists ever been listened to?
- emiliobumachar 5y ago
  Nuclear power had huge setbacks due to environmental concerns accepted by a majority of the people. Also, the ban on supersonic flights over noise pollution.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bigbillheck 5y ago
> Things will go wrong (as they have), but this wasn't some sort of catastrophic failure like Deepwater Horizon or something The thought is to stop this kind of thing before we get another Deepwater Horizon (or Montara or Ixtoc or Bohai Bay or Barataria Bay or so on), not after.
dang 5y ago
You broke the site guidelines and started a large flamewar with this. That's seriously not cool. We don't want shallow, predictable, nasty discussion here. At a minimum, you broke these: "Don't be snarky." "Eschew flamebait." "Avoid generic tangents." "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Generic ideological tangents are particularly destructive here. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20ideolog%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
- baryphonic 5y ago
  I'm very sorry that this happened, and was not at all my intention. I had no idea that the post would be received the way that it was. Usually, if I make a post that has an extreme reaction like this one, I delete it shortly thereafter, but failed to do so here. While I can understand how my comment could be interpreted as snark or possibly flamebait (despite neither being my intention), I'm not sure I understand the "generic tangents" or straw-manning claims. Can you help me understand which parts of my post cross these boundaries so I can avoid them in the future?
  - dang 5y ago
    I took it as a generic tangent because it went into a generic critique of environmentalists, and as a straw man because no one would plausibly argue "can never allow anything new". The 'generic tangent' point doesn't exactly explain itself, but it's so important. This recent comment explains it more, with links to lots of previous explanation, if anyone is interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26894739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26894739

nerdponx 5y ago

My understanding is that marine ecosystems are interconnected and can be surprisingly sensitive, and that we humans depend on them mre than you'd think. It also makes sense to assume that deep-sea mining is damaging and disruptive by default. It therefore makes sense to be very very cautious about it. That's as far as I can wrap my head around it. Maybe there are people here with some expertise who can elaborate.

mienski 5y ago

You're really going for the straw-man argument here I see, there is a huge difference between launching a space ship and creating a new way to mine the earth and destroy the environment. I understand that they have this little catch-all: > GSR has said it will only apply for a mining contract if the science shows deep seabed minerals have advantages, from an environmental and social perspective, over relying solely on land mining. But I'm not going to hold my breath thinking that if they find a rich-enough deposit of minerals - that they wont suddenly discover enough "advantages" for the ocean to now be open to the same decimation as land mining has seen for many years.

the-dude 5y ago
This. And ocean is really scarce.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  Our planet has way more ocean than land. In what way is that scarce?
  - igetspam 5y ago
    I'll take the bait. Planets that are capable of sustaining human life are scarce. Putting aside the divisions on our maps, we have a total of one ocean. Since we have exactly one planet to live on and one ocean to sustain life, I'm gonna go ahead and call that pretty scarce. There's a massive amount of water but if we ruin that one ocean, I believe we all die. So now it's time for a judgement call: what is so valuable at that depth that you're comfortable having people poke holes in it hoping to determine the science is good and worth the risk?
    - TheAdamAndChe 5y ago
      From a life sustaining perspective, the most important thing the ocean does is absorb CO2 through oceanic churning and phytoplankton. Some might say that the ocean currents are important too because it transfers heat between the north and south, but it has stopped before and only caused greater temperature gradients, but life was still sustained. How would undersea mining put any of this at risk?
      - hackily 5y ago
        I'd be fairly concerned if undersea mining waste or debris started killing off phytoplankton, perhaps by disrupting any of the delicate cycles such as phosphorus, or providing extra iron which may lead to runaway algal blooms or such, and subsequent algal death and oxygen shortage. Since the mining is so deep, we don't know if these effects will stay localized, or if undersea currents will dilute these effects, or anything. It should be valid to question what harm there could be. Nature is quite fragile, and we should know that, especially seeing what harm industrial processes have had on the atmosphere. On the other hand, it's quite possible that undersea mining may produce less harm than surface mining, where waste gets dliuted far enough to have less impact. Maybe similar to how salmon farming has to be done where there's a strong enough current to dilute the waste.

dsign 5y ago

I can't wrap my head around environmentalists. If they really understand that anything we do perturbs the environment--and it does--, why are they not openly advocating for evacuating all humans from Earth as soon as possible and creating a full-planet environmental reserve? It's not like there is not enough matter in the solar system to create our own lush ecosystems...

DanBC 5y ago
We need manganese. We currently get that from open cast mines. Those are pretty terrible, so we need to look at ways of making them not awful, or at alternatives. Deep sea mining doesn't really do much for either. Nodules are never going to provide enough to meet demand, so mining nodules doesn't get rid of open cast mining. We don't know what the impact is of mining deep sea nodules, but it's likely to be pretty bad. If open cast mining had a history of attempting to fix the mines (eg re-wilding) when they'd finished we could trust them a bit more when they want to mine new untouched wilderness. But they mostly don't have that history. EDIT: for an example of the harm already caused: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02242-y https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02242-y
- horsawlarway 5y ago
  > Nodules are never going to provide enough to meet demand My understanding was that this one area is estimated to have more rare metals in these nodules than all land based deposits combined.
FredPret 5y ago
They think of humans as a plague. It’s a weird form of self-hatred. From a philosophical point of view, I wonder if this stems from the idea of “original sin” in Christianity.
QuadmasterXLII 5y ago
Try to remember that today you live in a world shaped by environmentalists: that’s why there are currently some rivers safe to swim in / not on fire, why the air isn’t filled with toxic levels of lead, why it’s ok to go outside without immediate sunburn

buran77 5y ago

> can never allow anything new, since we don't know what impact it will have When they say "we don't know the impact" it's on a range from "pretty bad" to "disastrous". Mining never had any kind of net positive impact on the environment so it's not a matter of "hey, maybe we actually help the fish and wildlife by mining here".

stuff4ben 5y ago
Humans as a whole have never had net positive impact on the environment either. Responsible deep-sea mining, with oversight and regulations in place should be allowed. Until we can determine the impact, I don't see why it should be banned outright.
- j-pb 5y ago
  That's not how safety regulation works, where the burden of proof is on the potential offenders side. We don't allow random chemicals as food additives and drugs and recall them if they turn out to not be safe. We show that they're save before we allow them on the market.
  - stuff4ben 5y ago
    Exactly! How else do you prove deep sea mining is safe without trials like this?
    - j-pb 5y ago
      Ecological surveys. Disturbing a delicate ecosystem by driving a roomba the size of a bulldozer through it is one of those, "that's obviously gonna fuck things up", things where you just need to look at prexisting scientific data. Much like the question: "is eating half a kilo of table salt a viable cancer treatment?"
- carapace 5y ago
  > Humans as a whole have never had net positive impact on the environment either. It's not written in stone. Check out the story of the Loess plateu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loess_Plateau#Agriculture_and_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loess_Plateau#Agriculture_and_... We destroyed it (it looked like a Lunar landscape) and then we regenerated it. > Until we can determine the impact, I don't see why it should be banned outright. You're inverting the logic: you don't set fire to the house and then "determine the impact" afterward. Keep in mind that the cure for cancer isn't down there, cheap fusion isn't down there, the fountain of youth isn't down there. We don't really need those minerals, we just want to make money. But the time when profit was more important than living healthy oceans has passed, surely?

carapace 5y ago

> I think they should at least be given a chance to prove it or not. Why? What happens if they are not given that chance? I don't think there is any responsible way to mine the ocean. Not when Musk's rockets are about to open the "Final Frontier" for us. There is one (1) living planet in the entire known universe. But there are plenty of rocks and minerals and metal just floating around out there for the taking. No environment to damage, eh? (Well, I mean, the rockets pollute a bit. But overall they don't kill the oceans. That's the important bit.) You have to realize that it's not "environmentalists vs FOO", it's all of us vs. our own greed and stupidity. "The Earth!? That's where I keep all my stuff!" ~ the Tick

xwolfi 5y ago
But I'm sure the environment can adapt too. I mean, it's not like anyone cared about preserving species and ecosystems before we arrived, catastrophic events happened, population of animales died and arose, for billions of years. Billions. So we're the latest catastrophic event, big deal. The earth will adapt as it always has and at least we can try to discuss our impact, unlike an asteroid or a syberian forest fire.
- fghthidudhmbdi 5y ago
  Earth will only be habitable for less than 1 billion more years. We do not have any evidence of abstractly intelligent life forms outside of human beings. There is not enough time left for another intellect to evolve. Like it or not, if we do not successfully become a space-faring species, all life known in the universe will be wiped out.
  - noxer 5y ago
    >all life known in the universe will be wiped out. Is that a problem for you? And why would it not come to existence again somewhere eventually? Its interesting to think about such stuff but it really should not have an impact on decisions we make today because it just not possible to affect a so distant future (thousands of years) in a meaning full way. Just imagine humans 2000 years ago what could they have possibly done that would have had a positive environmental effect today. And that's just 2000 years ago. If you apply this to mining the see floor. Do you seriously think that if we today decide that human should not do this that it wont be done in 2000 years? I think is far more likely it just pushed a little back in time an insignificant little, maybe one human life maybe even two who knows but in 4021 no one cares if it started in the year 2021 or 2121 that's for sure. Also if you want our species to become multi planetary then the only logical thing to do is to use all resources available achieve this as soon as possible. If we used up the resources or have way more humans and no spear resources no one is going to achieve it anymore.

bmitc 5y ago

When have environmentalists ever been listened to?

emiliobumachar 5y ago
Nuclear power had huge setbacks due to environmental concerns accepted by a majority of the people. Also, the ban on supersonic flights over noise pollution.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bigbillheck 5y ago

> Things will go wrong (as they have), but this wasn't some sort of catastrophic failure like Deepwater Horizon or something The thought is to stop this kind of thing before we get another Deepwater Horizon (or Montara or Ixtoc or Bohai Bay or Barataria Bay or so on), not after.

dang 5y ago

You broke the site guidelines and started a large flamewar with this. That's seriously not cool. We don't want shallow, predictable, nasty discussion here. At a minimum, you broke these: "Don't be snarky." "Eschew flamebait." "Avoid generic tangents." "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Generic ideological tangents are particularly destructive here. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20ideolog%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

baryphonic 5y ago
I'm very sorry that this happened, and was not at all my intention. I had no idea that the post would be received the way that it was. Usually, if I make a post that has an extreme reaction like this one, I delete it shortly thereafter, but failed to do so here. While I can understand how my comment could be interpreted as snark or possibly flamebait (despite neither being my intention), I'm not sure I understand the "generic tangents" or straw-manning claims. Can you help me understand which parts of my post cross these boundaries so I can avoid them in the future?
- dang 5y ago
  I took it as a generic tangent because it went into a generic critique of environmentalists, and as a straw man because no one would plausibly argue "can never allow anything new". The 'generic tangent' point doesn't exactly explain itself, but it's so important. This recent comment explains it more, with links to lots of previous explanation, if anyone is interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26894739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26894739