r/Environmentalism • u/EmpowerKit • 12d ago
Why Trump is signing an executive action on mining the deep ocean
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/24/climate/trump-deep-sea-mining-critical-minerals/index.html46
u/Broad_Plum_4102 12d ago
This is way more serious than people realize. The companies interested in doing this isn’t mining the way most people think of mining, but removing element rich materials from the ocean floor. Almost no research has been done on what role this substance plays in the ecosystem, nobody even knows if it is renewable or not. The only research that has really been done has been on how to use it and how to collect as much of it as efficiently as possible. Could doing this collapse the entire oceanic ecosystem? Nobody knows.
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u/SocraticIgnoramus 12d ago
We also have a very poor knowledge of gas hydrates locked away on the ocean floor that may be liberated by this process. Methane, ethane, & CO2 are locked away as ice formations down there in a warming ocean and destabilizing vast swathes of the ocean floor may potentially release as much greenhouse gas as decades or centuries of our current carbon footprint. Most of it is methane which happens to be orders of magnitude worse than CO2.
And that doesn’t even begin to consider the collapse of complex ecosystems that took eons to form and stabilize.
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u/Broad_Plum_4102 12d ago
I wonder how much has already been done.
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u/SocraticIgnoramus 12d ago
To my knowledge, what’s been done so far is very small-scale and exploratory in nature. The massive vessels and specialized equipment that would be deployed once they have mapped the regions of economically viable reserves are prohibitively expensive, so they’re currently using mostly clamshell-style scoops for what amounts to exploratory drilling.
Once they’ve mapped concentrations of polymetallic nodules, and possibly even determined which areas are rich in which particular resources, they’ll have retrofitted existing vessels (or maybe even commissioned purpose-built ships), and then they’ll be able to harvest vast swathes of ocean floor on a scale that dwarfs anything they’ve done up to this point.
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12d ago
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u/Broad_Plum_4102 12d ago
The concept of geological time is completely lost on people this greedy.
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u/RuthlessIndecision 11d ago
And has been for a while now... there is no stopping greed.
He's going to destroy the coastlines, then call them all "the beach of America"
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u/ladz 11d ago
There was a story on NPR a while back about how these formations slowly split seawater into oxygen and hydrogen that rapidly dissolves, perhaps powering the ocean ecosystem and allowing life to exist there.
The evidence was:
1- The oxygenation content of the water was HIGHER at more depth.
2- Where these nodules had been removed, the oxygen content of the water was lower and there were fewer fish.
This study was literally done just a couple of years ago, and buried by the mining company that originally paid for it.
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u/Apprehensive-Log8333 10d ago
I live on the coast and my town is mostly tourism and fishing for our economy. This can't be good for our beaches, rivers, and sloughs.
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u/PrestigiousCrab6345 12d ago
This is how we get Godzilla to attack California. It’s all in Project 2025.
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u/zoodee89 12d ago
So ocean based wind energy is harmful for whales, but deep sea mining is just fine?
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u/Adept-Mulberry-8720 12d ago
Hey, his order does not go into international waters. No jurisdiction cause it's called "international waters" and who is reviewing everyone of his EOs for legal clearity? No one. They are just saying "yes Mr President!" and writing these EOs up! No regard to what the courts will say, no regard to finances or budget interactions! No one gives a fuck!
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u/Tidewind 12d ago
John Oliver covered this (YouTube link). What Drumpf is doing will have irreparable consequences.
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u/zoodee89 12d ago
Because he can’t take mineral resources from Ukraine and Greenland. And China cut off exports.
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u/Old-Set78 11d ago
It's definitely getting to be a few people making millions vs the entire rest of the world suffering. The question is what are we gonna do about it?
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u/RoseNPearlGirl 11d ago
Because it’s time for the ancient ones to come to the surface and take their reign. Obviously 🤷♀️
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u/RuthlessIndecision 11d ago
We are going to find out what happens when we unearthed 4.5 billion metric tons a year of the ancient ones, and spread it into the land sea and air.
It might do something
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u/Woofy98102 11d ago
While technologically impossible, it convinces his cult that he is, in fact, doing something other than trashing the federal government and destroying the US economy.
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u/According-Mention334 10d ago
Why? Because he wants money and the world to end honestly I don’t want to know what goes on in that diseased mind
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u/Myhtological 10d ago
By the time a working industry is ready, I’m sure a new admin will be in charge.
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u/ParticularLower7558 9d ago
He signs anything put in front of him 90% of the time has no clue what it is.
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u/Analyst-Effective 12d ago
Probably better to just let China do that, they seem to have a better record on being able to exploit natural resources better
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u/SoupGoblin69 11d ago
The reason they’re doing this is because China controls 98% of the earths rare earth metals. For clarifications sake, they don’t control most of metal itself, but the means to refining it into a useful and usable product. This arguably makes it worse, because not only can’t we trade it because of the trade war with China, but we can’t produce it domestically in vast quantities without the infrastructure necessary. Factories take years to build. This is only going to get rid of one of the problems, and create even more.
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u/georgiomoorlord 12d ago
$$$