Deep sea mining

danlightbulb said:
So one slight sediment plume in a tiny part of the ocean and you consider that significant enough to prevent/oppose the whole activity worldwide?
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It started as one slight fishing boat in a tiny part of the ocean, then over time it expanded to enormous beam trawlers depleting entire fish stocks and threatening entire ecosystems.
 
Devilman said:
It started as one slight fishing boat in a tiny part of the ocean, then over time it expanded to enormous beam trawlers depleting entire fish stocks and threatening entire ecosystems.
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Yes and what have been the impacts of this and why do they matter?

Here's an article on over fishing which all sounds fine, except the issue is that it doesn't say why it matters.
www.nationalgeographic.co.uk

How overfishing threatens the world's oceans—and why it could end in catastrophe

Decades of harvesting the seas have disrupted the delicate balance of marine ecosystems—despite global efforts to mitigate the damage.
www.nationalgeographic.co.uk www.nationalgeographic.co.uk

Lets say we lose coral reefs, mentioned in the above article. Now I agree coral reefs are nice to look at and home to a huge range of life.

Here is an extract from Sea Life London Aquarium on coral reefs:

What would happen if all the coral reefs died?
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What do coral reefs provide for marine life? If all coral reefs were to die, 25% of marine life would lose their habitat. There are roughly around 1 million different species that rely on coral reefs for food and shelter. If coral reefs were to die this would have a negative impact on biodiversity which would have a knock on effect on many other species including fish, turtles and other sea creatures.

There would also be a profoundly negative impact on humans if coral reefs died! Many coastal areas could suffer an acute food crisis as fish numbers begin to drop.

Coral reefs also offer a huge source of life-saving drugs for the health industry, for example, extracts of sponges found in a Caribbean reef were used to help form the antiviral drugs Ara-A and AZT and the anticancer agent Ara-C.
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So what I notice is how its framed, yet again, around people. They don't care about the corals for the sake of the corals, they care about them because it might impact us. Talk about selfish?

If we did lose the coral reefs, the planet would recover, life in the ocean would reconfigure accordingly.

Humans would also reconfigure accordingly.
 
danlightbulb said:
doesn't say why it matters.
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Are you really asking why the collapse of the worlds fisheries matters?

danlightbulb said:
What's backed up with science, deep sea mining? We haven't done any yet its all speculative at the moment.

Or do you mean climate change? Ive never said climate change isn't happening I just said it doesn't matter too much.
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Well we can't argue with your feels can we.
 
200sols said:
Are you really asking why the collapse of the worlds fisheries matters?
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Why wouldn't this be asked? Do you assume because a group of people think something is important that that's the end of it? That we should just accept it matters and that's it?

"The loss of this river near my house is important."
"Why"
"Because these frogs live there and they will lose their home"
"So what. There is another river over there the frogs can live in. You don't need the frogs to survive, it won't change or impact your existence at all, other than you like that river being there".
"but, but, but , the frogs..."

That's how most environmental discussions go.
 
danlightbulb said:
There is one whopping assumption underpinning any analysis like this. And that is that increasing CO2 is 'bad'. Define 'bad'.

It might be bad for humans long term. But for the planet? Will we eventually turn into Venus? Maybe but that will be billions of years into the future. Maybe not. Maybe it would have happened anyway.
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In about 500 million years the planet will burn. This is largely due to the Sun continuing to warm up.

The Earths ability to recycle carbon is still strong and the planet will be rendered uninhabitable other ways before that cycle breaks down. We could well trigger a mass-extinction though. Latest estimates are a lot worse than they were twenty years ago. Now, worst case scenario puts deaths in to billions by the end of the 21st century.

But the Earth is not at risk here. It will recover. But that recovery may be measure in hundreds of thousands if not millions of years. The real question is whether mankind will survive? Who knows? It depends how bad the damage is. The survivors could end up underground, in the classic Hollywood scenario, for an extremely long time.
 
SpellowHouse said:
Now, worst case scenario puts deaths in to billions by the end of the 21st century.
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In 76 years? Well some here might be lucky enough to still be alive (just) to see if it comes true. We can have an epic thread revival in 76 years time to see whether the doom mongers were right.

Unless we're all living underground of course, no wifi then.
 
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danlightbulb said:
The ocean is massive, and the impact from a handful of operates might be minimal to nothing.
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The ocean is massive however the areas that may eventually be mined are also quite large. Bear in mind that any actions in these zones are not going to be isolated to these zones but will have some "spill over" into non-mined areas.:

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SOURCE
 
Many years ago when I worked in the dredging industry (about 1980) this was a much talked about thing. Being able to dredge for deep sea minerals as nodules on the sea bed. I left the industry and did not keep up with the topic. Did this ever happen?
 
danlightbulb said:
What's backed up with science, deep sea mining? We haven't done any yet its all speculative at the moment.

Or do you mean climate change? Ive never said climate change isn't happening I just said it doesn't matter too much.
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Well it matters to the people fleeing it's effects turning up at Dover doesn't it?
 
Yeah, it's not really mining, more farming. Looks like the Falkland Isles are particularly well situated for this activity.
As to how they were formed, possibly volcanic activity at large ocean depths.
 
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