Jul 17, 2024 05:18 PM
(This post was last modified: Jul 17, 2024 05:21 PM by C C.)
https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energ...rbon-cycle
INTRO: In mid-June, John Oliver aired a segment on Last Week Tonight condemning proposals for deep sea mining, in this case investigating efforts to use underwater robots to collect potato-sized metals-rich polymetallic nodules from the seabed. While characteristically entertaining, Oliver’s critique repeated several exaggerations commonly circulated by opponents of seafloor nodule collection—exaggerations that in reality greatly contradict our scientific understanding of ocean science and marine life.
Urging the public to scrutinize nodule collection’s potential environmental impacts is as understandable as it is beneficial for promoting oversight and accountability. Indeed, civil society ought to act as a measured counterbalance to a nodule collection industry, pushing companies to improve practices and enjoining the International Seabed Authority (ISA) and national agencies to tightly enforce regulatory standards.
However, such public engagement is only constructive insofar as it remains committed to evidence and analysis. In going as far as to claim that seafloor nodule collection in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) could threaten the ocean’s ability to store carbon dioxide, for example, both John Oliver and the activists who supplied him with that argument stray from grounded debate into unscientific point-scoring.
In general, it appears that Last Week Tonight simply accepted many common counterarguments against seafloor nodule collection at face value, rather than interrogating those claims or statistics more closely.
At any reasonably imaginable scale of seafloor nodule harvesting, the ocean carbon sink will experience effectively zero impacts. Numerous other claims that Oliver makes throughout his segment also contain clear inaccuracies that warrant correction or discussion. Unpacking such statements helps promote more nuanced, evidence-based assessments of the potential benefits and costs of nodule collection, including how innovative regulations or technology can help improve that balance further.
Given the significant advantages nodules could offer—critical minerals for the energy transition sourced far from human communities with fewer carbon emissions, less excavation, and more international regulatory accountability—a more rational public conversation can only benefit people and the planet... (MORE - details)
INTRO: In mid-June, John Oliver aired a segment on Last Week Tonight condemning proposals for deep sea mining, in this case investigating efforts to use underwater robots to collect potato-sized metals-rich polymetallic nodules from the seabed. While characteristically entertaining, Oliver’s critique repeated several exaggerations commonly circulated by opponents of seafloor nodule collection—exaggerations that in reality greatly contradict our scientific understanding of ocean science and marine life.
Urging the public to scrutinize nodule collection’s potential environmental impacts is as understandable as it is beneficial for promoting oversight and accountability. Indeed, civil society ought to act as a measured counterbalance to a nodule collection industry, pushing companies to improve practices and enjoining the International Seabed Authority (ISA) and national agencies to tightly enforce regulatory standards.
However, such public engagement is only constructive insofar as it remains committed to evidence and analysis. In going as far as to claim that seafloor nodule collection in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) could threaten the ocean’s ability to store carbon dioxide, for example, both John Oliver and the activists who supplied him with that argument stray from grounded debate into unscientific point-scoring.
In general, it appears that Last Week Tonight simply accepted many common counterarguments against seafloor nodule collection at face value, rather than interrogating those claims or statistics more closely.
At any reasonably imaginable scale of seafloor nodule harvesting, the ocean carbon sink will experience effectively zero impacts. Numerous other claims that Oliver makes throughout his segment also contain clear inaccuracies that warrant correction or discussion. Unpacking such statements helps promote more nuanced, evidence-based assessments of the potential benefits and costs of nodule collection, including how innovative regulations or technology can help improve that balance further.
Given the significant advantages nodules could offer—critical minerals for the energy transition sourced far from human communities with fewer carbon emissions, less excavation, and more international regulatory accountability—a more rational public conversation can only benefit people and the planet... (MORE - details)