Should We Mine the Final Frontier?

Join us for a conversation about the minerals at the bottom of the sea, which some call humanity’s only hope and others believe will lead us into an ecological disaster. The minerals, which are found miles deep, include manganese and cobalt, a component of batteries in cellphones, laptops, electric vehicles, and other technologies considered essential to the energy revolution. Corporations in North America, Europe, and Asia are planning to mine the deep sea, which is less known and studied than the moon. Opponents of mining point out that the process is likely to inject toxic heavy metals into food chains that connect the ocean to ocean people, particularly in the Pacific Islands, where the densest concentrations of seabed minerals exist. They add that the ocean and seabed are storage lockers for carbon that sinks out of the atmosphere. Will deep-sea minerals save us? Or destroy eco- and social systems that have existed for millennia? Let’s talk about it.

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