Mining the Ocean

 Those who grew up watching Star Trek, or have seen its reruns, will remember the phrase: "Space: the final frontier". Actually space is not really the final frontier. The Guardian (27 September 2021) reports: "humanity knows more about deep space than the deep ocean". The context of this statement is worth examining because it involves a new and serious threat to our planet:

"In late June, the island republic of Nauru informed the International Seabed Authority (ISA) based in Kingston, Jamaica of its intention to start mining the seabed in two years’ time via a subsidiary of a Canadian firm, The Metals Company (TMC, until recently known as DeepGreen). Innocuous as it sounds, this note was a starting gun for a resource race on the planet’s last vast frontier: the abyssal plains that stretch between continental shelves deep below the oceans." (Guardian, 27 September) (LINK)

The article goes on to quote "Louisa Casson, an oceans campaigner at Greenpeace International". She warns about: "... the potential risks of fisheries disturbance, water contamination, sound pollution and habitat destruction for dumbo octopuses, sea pangolins and other species,..." The desire to mine often grows out of a desire for profit without regard for the environmental consequences. The Guardian article goes on to quote the mining director and an environmental concern:

"This really is a throwback to the early robber baron era. Our global heritage is being decided in small backroom discussions. Most people are completely unaware that this enormous planet-changing decision is being made. It is very non-transparent.”

The important question for our parish is of course what we can do to prevent mining operations like this, or to ensure some minimum of environmental regulation. There are actually a number of answers, one of which is to be sure that our lifetime investments are not used to support this kind of mining. Another is to make our concerns publicly known in ways that offer scientific evidence about the damage such mining does. Greta Thunberg has shown what one very dedicated person can accomplish. All of us have an obligation to speak out in an attempt to preserve God's creation. 

Comments

Unknown said…
Its way beyond pollution to destabilizing the plates on which life rest way above. It may seem lucrative and worth a try to a miner;however, they are disastrous consequences like Tsunamis due to tremors and the like.So, any initiative to prevent such investments is worth every minute for the future.
9/28/21, 7:50 AM
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