[JadeNB]

> Very little life exists at the ocean floor, since there are very few life sustaining resources there.

I think that this isn't true even in light of our current known science; but our understanding of what "life sustaining resources" are is something that can only grow with time—certainly we've often found in the past life in places that we thought were utterly inhospitable to it—and so we cannot meaningfully say that little life exists for this reason. And it can be dangerous to sacrifice life even when we think we understand it very well, unless we are sure that we completely understand its role in the ecosystem, or, rather, how its removal from one part of the ecosystem will affect our part of the ecosystem—which we (almost?) definitely don't.

[BurningFrog]

We've explored the deep ocean. Far from every spot, but enough to know the big picture. There is some life there but not much. Because there is very little resources to sustain life. It's pretty much just whatever scraps fall down from near the surface.

Now, of course mining the sea floor will disrupt the local eco systems. It might take decades or longer for those to heal. To me that's fine in the big picture.

A big exception is underwater volcanoes, which have enormously vibrant eco systems, and may even be where life on Earth originated. This is because the volcanoes supply tons of heat energy and minerals. No one is thinking of mining those.

Either way, this video is quite informative, and doesn't even fully agree with me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFaWgAXax1Q&ab_channel=60Min...

[vlovich123]

> We've explored the deep ocean. Far from every spot, but enough to know the big picture. There is some life there but not much. Because there is very little resources to sustain life. It's pretty much just whatever scraps fall down from near the surface.

26.1% of the ocean floor is mapped. By comparison, 100% of the Moon surface and 99% of the Mars surface is mapped. Less than 5% of the ocean has actually been seen by humans. I don't know what makes you think we have enough to know the big picture, but to me that seems like a very small portion. And certainly not enough to really understand the lifecycle that's going on down there.

[BurningFrog]

You're technically right, of course.

And one example of your point is when people first took a look at underwater volcanoes a few decades ago and found worlds of life no one had even imagined.

Then again, on a practical level, any ocean floor area humanity might mine would be carefully studied beforehand. That's needed to know where and how to mine, if nothing else.

So I'll claim that anywhere we'd mine we'd have a very good view of what life would be affected how. There could still be a Martian UFO base on the ocean floor 20 miles away, of course, but that wouldn't be affected.

[vlovich123]

> Then again, on a practical level, any ocean floor area humanity might mine would be carefully studied beforehand. That's needed to know where and how to mine, if nothing else.

And if they discover life you're thinking they'll stop the mining? Or will your next argument be "Oh but actually that's not a lot of life" or "it's OK if that life dies out".

This is a very wise quote that applies to relying on good faith actions:

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

From another commentor:

> 1. There is a lot of animal life in the deep ocean where these modules are present and absent where they are not

So it's pretty clear if anything that today we already know these nodules are likely relevant to deep ocean life in some way we don't fully understand yet.

[BurningFrog]

I 100% think the mining should go ahead even if it destroys some life!

Without destroying life we can't even eat. That's an impossible standard. We could have no mines on land either, not to mention cities or farms. When morality becomes a suicide pact, I'm out!

If the mining would destroy a large eco system forever, then I'm OK with not doing it. It's easy to have others than the mining corporation making these decisions. It's not a new problem for undersea mining.

[vlovich123]

I wanted to give this comment some careful thought. My challenge with your position is that no one, or at least certainly not me, has claimed the standard as negatively impacting any life. The standard is "will this spiral out into an ecological disaster" and right now the evidence suggests that we don't know enough to suggest it won't. If you allow some industrialization, then there's more and more economic pressure to scale it up regardless of the safety impacts.

It's also extremely dramatic to call this a suicide pact. The impact of not mining the sea floor is that we increase mining & pay a little bit more for obtaining these resources in other areas. In fact, if the fears of it severely disrupting ocean life bear out, then indeed this turns out to be a mass suicide pact to kill ourselves to enrich the few who profit off of this.

> It's easy to have others than the mining corporation making these decisions. It's not a new problem for undersea mining.

I think you greatly underestimate the challenge of scaling back industry once it gains economic and political power. If this is a 1T industry and we then find out we're heading for a massive ecological disaster, will we shut down the 1T industry on a dime or try to "mitigate" the fall out? Additionally, the amount of regulatory capture that seems to have happened in the governing body that would be making these decisions suggest that it won't be a measured approach to judging safety and efficacy.