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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 ad

by 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
LeifCarrotson 5y ago
An Iain Banks Culture Orbital is optimal, yes. But "perturbs" is a weasel word. You can 'perturb' the environment without destroying it, or you can 'perturb' it and leave a desolate wasteland where nothing grows. I'm hardly an environmentalist, but for a personal example, my home happens to have a well for drinking water, a perturbation of the environment that's perfectly sustainable, we use less water from this well than the watershed on my property restores to the aquifer. This is an acceptable perturbation IMO. That well is contaminated with polyfluoroalkyl substances from Scotchgard-treated leather scraps. It was too expensive to dispose of them safely, so Wolverine leather buried truckloads of the toxins in a local swamp. This 'perturbed' the environment, turning the place into a Superfund site, making the entire aquifer toxic for decades to come, and should not have been done. If underwater mining just makes a depression in the seafloor with little other effects, that's probably an OK perturbation. If it releases heavy metals into the water that travel with the currents for miles and miles, killing much of the wildlife, that's an unacceptable perturbation.
bigbillheck 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 I think the reason you can't wrap your head around them is because, with possibly a few individual exceptions, 'any human effect on the environment at all' isn't actually what they're opposed to.
davidcbc 5y ago
Because a "solution" like that is at best several hundred years away and in the meantime we'd like to slow down the current mass extinction event so that the life as we know it on this planet can survive until then.

by dsign 5y ago

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

LeifCarrotson 5y ago

An Iain Banks Culture Orbital is optimal, yes. But "perturbs" is a weasel word. You can 'perturb' the environment without destroying it, or you can 'perturb' it and leave a desolate wasteland where nothing grows. I'm hardly an environmentalist, but for a personal example, my home happens to have a well for drinking water, a perturbation of the environment that's perfectly sustainable, we use less water from this well than the watershed on my property restores to the aquifer. This is an acceptable perturbation IMO. That well is contaminated with polyfluoroalkyl substances from Scotchgard-treated leather scraps. It was too expensive to dispose of them safely, so Wolverine leather buried truckloads of the toxins in a local swamp. This 'perturbed' the environment, turning the place into a Superfund site, making the entire aquifer toxic for decades to come, and should not have been done. If underwater mining just makes a depression in the seafloor with little other effects, that's probably an OK perturbation. If it releases heavy metals into the water that travel with the currents for miles and miles, killing much of the wildlife, that's an unacceptable perturbation.

bigbillheck 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 I think the reason you can't wrap your head around them is because, with possibly a few individual exceptions, 'any human effect on the environment at all' isn't actually what they're opposed to.

davidcbc 5y ago

Because a "solution" like that is at best several hundred years away and in the meantime we'd like to slow down the current mass extinction event so that the life as we know it on this planet can survive until then.