7.31.25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to radioiz's Diary of Science and Nature. Your reader's
Kelly Taylor. I'll have articles related to science and nature,
but first a reminder. RADIOI is reading service intended for
people who are blind or have other disabilities that make
it difficult to read printed material. Her first article comes

(00:22):
from Smithsonian. The headline reads, as interest in deep sea
mining grows, scientists raise alarms about the possible ecological consequences.
This is from July the eighteenth. The deep sea is

(00:44):
an extreme environment, featuring crushing pressure, near freezing temperatures, and
total darkness. It can be hard for humans to imagine
anything capable of withstanding such conditions, and ye yet life persists.
In rare trips to the deep sea, scientists have uncovered

(01:06):
sea cucumbers with purple magenta omber coloring, yety crabs with
hairy featherlike claws, octopuses with ears like the Disney character Dumbo,
irridescent mollusks, and phantasmic jellyfish. This life is all but

(01:28):
a fraction of what scientists suspect exists on the deep
sea floor. But just as researchers are beginning to discover
the multitude of species that call the ocean floor. Home
countries around the world are already making plans to mine it.
Minerals on the deep sea floor were discovered in most

(01:49):
oceans in the eighteen seventies during the Challenger expeditions. However,
interest in mining these minerals was not popularized until the
mid twentieth six century, when American geologist John L. Merrow,
known as the father of ocean mining, promoted the practice
in his nineteen sixty five book The Mineral Resources of

(02:12):
the Sea. Global demand for critical minerals found in seabed
areas like nickel, cobalt, manganese, and lithium or on the rise. Currently,
these minerals are most commonly mined in Indonesia, the Democratic
Republic of Congo, South Africa, and Australia, respectively. Many of

(02:32):
these sites have been accused in recent years of committing
a variety of human rights and labour abuses. Concerns about
the long term viability of such minds are also leading
companies to look for minerals elsewhere. These minerals are used
in defense technology, smartphones, electric vehicles, and even medical devices.

(02:54):
The International Energy Agency predicts that by twenty forty, demand
for these minerals from clean inners technologies will at least
double under one scenario. So now the prospectors are turning
to the depths of the ocean. The International Seabed Authority,
the body in charge of approving exploration and development of

(03:15):
deep sea mining projects in the international waters, has currently
issued thirty one mineral exploration contracts, but it has not
yet approved any commercial mining operations, as the regulations for
such activities are still under review. Meanwhile, thirty seven countries
have so far taken positions against deep sea mining on

(03:37):
international waters, citing potential environmental harms. Last month, the Trump
administration announced that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management would
begin to fast track the development of deep sea mining projects.
The move follows and executive order President Donald Trump released
in late April calling for the expedition of domestic and

(04:01):
international deep sea mining projects as a means of strengthening
our economy, securing our energy future, and reducing dependence on
foreign suppliers for critical minerals. The debate surrounding deep sea
mining represents an interesting tension, as the minerals it produces

(04:21):
help power many of the technologies that countries need to
achieve sustainability. Goals such as reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
Yet many environmental scientists are wary of how the process
might harm the deep sea ecosystem, an area of the
world that we still know very little about. Current estimates

(04:43):
say that less than point zero zero one percent of
Earth's deep sea floor has been explored. In an effort
to understand how the deep sea environment might be affected
by mining, we contacted five experts and ask them several
d questions. How does deep sea mining work? As of now,

(05:05):
geologists are considering three different methods to mine the floor
of the deep sea, Though some effects and processes overlap,
each type employs different technology that picks up distinct mineral deposits,
and their environmental impacts vary. The first of these methods
targets sulfide deposits by crushing or on hydrothermal vent systems

(05:31):
near the sites of volcanic activity at depths between three
thousand and thirteen thousand feet. The second looks to obtain
cobalt rich crusts that have accumulated over millions of years
on the tops of seamounts between depths of approximately three
thousand and eight thousand feet by peeling these crusts off

(05:53):
from the bedrock. The third targets polymetallic nodules, potato shaped
mineral bits about the size of a fist that contain manganese, iron, copper,
and nickel. These nodules are found at the deepest parts
of the ocean, at depths surpassing thirteen thousand feet. Polymetallic

(06:13):
nodules are mined using a subsea collector. Imagine an undersea
rumba about the size of a small house, tracking over
the seafloor and scooping up what's there. Hydrothermal vent mining
and cobalt crust mining also employ mining vehicles on the
seafloor in order to collect sulfide deposits and cobalt crusts

(06:37):
after they are broken off and removed. Each mining method
involves transporting a slurry of mined minerals to a surface vessel,
where valuable minerals are then separated from useless residue. Polymetallic
nodule mining has drawn the most interest. Nineteen of the
International Seabed Authority's thirty one explorations contracts are four identifying

(07:03):
potential sites for mining these nodules, the largest of which
is the Pacific Ocean's Clarion Clipperton Zone or CCZ for short.
This section of the Eastern Pacific spans one point seven
million square miles off the western coast of Mexico. How
would deep sea mining affect deep sea wildlife? Scientists are

(07:27):
still unsure about deep sea mining's potential impacts on creatures
that call the seafloor home, but from what they have
been able to uncover, many predict that mining will have
an incredibly negative, if not irreversible effect on this unique ecosystem.
According to Muriel Rabone, a researcher in the Deep Sea

(07:47):
Ecology and Systematics Group at London's Natural History Museum, though
the CCZ has been under the most exploration to identify
sites for nodule mining, the area is essentially a scientific
black hole. There's such extensive knowledge gaps in a lot
of deep sea habitats, Raboni says. Rabone was a key

(08:08):
or co author of a twenty twenty three study examining
biodiversity in the CCZ. Based on existing data on the
area's species, Her team found that approximately ninety percent of
species in the area are undescribed. Of the few species
that have been characterized so far, scientists have uncovered arthropods

(08:31):
and worms to the most common creatures on the floor
of the CCEZ. Quote. Wherever you're going to be mining
in the deep sea, you're going to be disturbing very
slow growing types of habitats, says Catherine Miller, an environmental
scientist at Lancaster University in England. Quote. There's also a

(08:51):
high degree of endemism, which just means the organisms are
really highly specific to live in that particular area. According
to Miller, because everything evolved to live in an extremely dark, cold,
and high pressure environment, species on the seafloor are highly specialized.

(09:12):
She adds that any sort of ecosystem recovery will likely
be extremely slow or simply won't happen at all, because
the deep sea's unique habitat conditions would be so disrupted.
How would deep sea mining affect other ocean animals? Environmental
concerns associated with each form of deep sea mining are

(09:33):
not limited to its effects on species that live in
the deepest abysses of the ocean. Species that live higher
up in the water column may also be affected by
the mining as it dredges up sediment plumes that then
rise toward shallower areas. According to Miller, modeling of the

(09:53):
proposed mining plans suggests that sediment plumes could drift for
several miles through out the water column, though Miller acknowledges
that it's difficult to predict exactly how far this sediment
plume would travel. Scientists are worried about its potential risk
to filter feeders organisms like baleen whales, certain fish and

(10:16):
sponges that feed through filtering water. Quote, They're going to
be filtering sediment, which could clog up their gills and
cause them all sorts of problems, she says. Moreover, the
noise pollution associated with deep sea mining technologies also has
the potential to harm cetaceans species like dolphins and whales

(10:37):
that use echolocation to communicate, even though these creatures largely
inhabit waters miles above where the direct impact of mining
would be. Quote. The thing with sound is it travels very,
very well in water, says Kirsten Young, population biologists at
England University of Exeter. According to Young, because the ocean's

(11:02):
unique physics, certain frequencies can travel more than three hundred
miles through different ocean basins. Quote. Cetaceans use sound to
communicate all the time. So if there's something that's a
really loud noise, and it could be a loud constant noise,
or it could be a sharp bang, and it depends
on where it is and what frequency that noise is,

(11:23):
it can mask the communication that they have between each other.
As young. For example, the noise is produced by deep
sea mining technologies could startle deep diving deep toils, causing
the animals to rise to the surface much faster than
is safe due to the pressure change. A mass stranding
of beaked whales in twenty eighteen, possibly due to an

(11:46):
unknown source of seismic activity, offers a bleak look into
how noise pollution might harm these animals. What would be
the long term effects of deep sea mining. A study
published this March in Nature confirms many scientists fears that
deep sea mining would damage the seafloor ecosystem. Researchers compared

(12:09):
to nineteen seventy nine sight of a deep sea mining
test in the CCZ with neighboring undisturbed areas, had found
that the site still had lower levels of biodiversity nearly
forty four years later in twenty twenty three. Moreover, the
study found that the physical signs of the test were
still visible. Scientists could still see a clear zone that

(12:32):
had been stripped of polymetallic nodules and track marks from
the vehicle used to collect them. The original nineteen seventy
nine tests employed roughly forty five foot long experimental mining
machine that mined an unknown quantity of nodules over four days.
Daniel Jones, co author of the study and research leader

(12:55):
at the United Kingdom's National Oceanography Center, said that the
law long term impacts of the mining disturbance are still
clear when observing wildlife such as sponges, corals, and sea
anemonies that spend their lives largely immobile on the seafloor.
According to Jones, although some of the more mobile creatures

(13:15):
had begun to repopulate to similar numbers seen in undisturbed
parts of the ocean, the diversity of life may take
centuries or more to return. Although Jones acknowledges that modern
mining vehicles may have the technology to create less of
a disturbance than the nineteen seventy nine test vehicle, he

(13:37):
emphasizes that the extent of that old test was incredibly small,
yet still left a long lasting mark. Modern mining sites,
he notes, will likely be the size of a small
town or larger. Quote. The current proposed method of mining
is still to have a vehicle on the seabed floor,
so the mining vessel will be on the seafloor. Miller heads,

(14:01):
I don't see how with the weight of that vessel
it's going to not cause the same amount of environmental damage.
Could mining affect other environmental elements on the seafloor. Andrew Sweetman,
a seafloor ecologist and biogeochemist at the Scottish Association for
Marine Science, had been doing experiments with benthic landers, large

(14:26):
devices used to observe the ocean floor when he and
his colleagues noticed something strange quote. They were showing that
the oxygen, instead of going down, instead of it being consumed,
was going up, Sweetman says. A few more tests later,
and Sweetmen's team confirmed that oxygen was being produced by
manganese oxide particles on the seafloor, most commonly found in

(14:50):
polymetallic modules or nodules. Sweetman and his team coined the
term dark oxygen to refer to this discovery. Oxygen production
that does not depend on traditional photosynthesis processes which require light.
Scientists are still unsure of what purpose the dark oxygen

(15:10):
serves in the ocean floor ecosystem. It's even possible that
the substance was triggered by researchers' instruments disturbing the nodules.
Quote Is it a microbial process linked to the manganese oxides?
Is it an electrochemical process linked to the manganese oxides?
Is it something completely different that we haven't thought about,

(15:33):
Sweetman says quote. Once we figure that out, we should
be in a better position to figure what is the
ecological world if any of the process in the ecosystem.
Sweetmen's findings are evidence that scientists simply don't know much
about the deep ocean ecosystem at all. The worry is
that if the nodules are indeed naturally producing oxygen, then

(15:56):
the removal of those nodules could have grave consequences for
the local ecosystem. What are the key takeaways about the
environmental impacts of deep sea mining? Mining companies have lauded
the lower environmental effects of deep sea projects compared with
land based mining, while also emphasizing that the retrieved minerals

(16:18):
will be used in green technologies. Quote. The polymetallic nodules
literally sit there like golf balls on a driving range,
says Gerard Barren, CEO of the Metals Company, which is
looking to be the first to commercially mine the ocean floor. Quote.
We can pick those nodules up and turn them into
metals at a fraction of the environmental and human impacts

(16:41):
compared to mining on land. Proponents say that the demand
for these minerals will keep rising and that the deep
sea offers a valuable alternative source for them. The Energy
Transitions Commission think tank reports that under a baseline scenario
where we deploy more or clean energy technologies and maintain

(17:02):
the same recycling trends, our demand for nickel, lithium, cobalt,
and copper will be higher than supply by twenty thirty. However,
other groups have pushed back against this prediction. In an
October twenty twenty four report, the International Council on Clean
Transportation think tank wrote that concerns over a supposed mineral
deficiency were quote overblown. Many scientists have doubts about deep

(17:28):
sea mining's claim to sustainability. Besides preliminary research on mining's
impact on the ocean ecosystem, and still unanswered questions on
its potential effects on the ocean's oxygen production and carbon storage.
Scientists also say that the deep sea is a near
impossible place to regulate. While terrestrial mining can be monitored,

(17:51):
says Jung, the CCZ, for example, is a particularly difficult
place to oversee, and it would require a serious financial
investment meant to fully understand the impacts of mining there.
Young's worry is that commercial deep sea mining will go
something like commercial fishing, which historically has not been well regulated.

(18:12):
Quote the ocean is a bit of a black box,
and I don't think we know enough about it to
be embarking upon an industry which is going to change
it irrevocably. Young ads. I'm not convinced that we can't
find the minerals in other ways, and we can't be
more responsible with the minerals that we have in use already. Quote.
Sweetman emphasizes that scientists need more time to do research

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and to be more vocal with their concerns. Quote We're
going to need to eventually, you know, be brave and say, Okay,
we know we don't know everything, but we know enough
to make a few decisions now, he says, now we're
going to turn to National Geographic. In this article's headline,

(18:55):
The Hidden Talents of Nature's Unloved Animals, written by A. J. Jacobs,
the vulture has to be one of the most reviled
creatures on Earth. The very word vulture is an insult,
a synonym for a greedy exploiter. In a way, vulture's

(19:16):
bad reputation is understandable for starters. They are neither cute
nor cuddly, while with their stooped posture, bare heads, and
beady eyes. They spend their days eating dead animals, and
they do it in a stomach churning way by entering
the corpse at its soft parts such as mouth, nose,

(19:36):
or anus. Vultures definitely have an image problem, says natural
geographic explorer Darcy Ogata, African program director at the conservation
nonprofit Peregrine Fund, who points out that a bald bird
sticking its beak up the rear end of a wildebeest
wouldn't make for the most appealing magazine cover. The bird's

(20:00):
pr problem has real world consequences. It causes us to
overlook the vulture's fascinating behavior and vital role in our ecosystem.
Without vultures, bad things happen. These birds act as nature's cleaners,
hoovering up rotting carcasses and preventing the spread of disease.

(20:22):
Considered the drastic situation in India, starting three decades ago,
vultures nearly disappeared after millions of them there were accidentally
poisoned by medicine used on capples, which turned out to
be toxic to vultures. As a result, the countryside became
littered with rotting, germ filled animal corpses that infected the

(20:42):
rivers and drinking water, and also boosted the population of
rabies carrying feral dogs. According to a recent study in
the American Economic Review, the decline in vultures correlated with
more than half a million excess human deaths in a
population sample in India between and two thousand and five.

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In an ideal world, the disappearing vulture population would be
a conservation priority, but it isn't. The vast majority of
global conservation money goes to a few top species, usually
large animals such as rhinos, elephants, and gorillas. Quote The
rest of conservation gets the scraps of Goddes said, the

(21:24):
animals fighting over those crumbs are what you might call
the d list species, the outcasts. We're talking about the vultures,
the naked mole rats, and the probosis monkeys with their pendulous,
blobby schnazes. They're not pretty, they're not colorful. They often
do gross things, such as eating feces, a habit of

(21:46):
the naked mole rat. They are the polar opposites of
the conservation icons, the lions, panda's, penguins, and giraffes that
star in nature documentaries, appear on our cereal boxes, and
get the lead rolls in animated movies. Conservationists call the
A listers, charismatic megafauna, or flagship species. Several studies show

(22:10):
that they get a lopsided share of donations. As one
study puts it, animal charisma Trump's endangered status. Just one example,
Amphibians account for about twenty five percent of threatened vertebrate species,
but only get two and a half percent of funding.
No one wants to kiss or donate to a slimy frog.

(22:31):
What does it take to be a very important animal?
It helps if you're cute, furry, jumbo size, and or
adorned with attention grabbing outerwear. Think the interesting patterns of
leopards and zebras. Cuteness is an especially powerful draw thanks
to our brains programming que what we find is cute

(22:52):
in animals is often the same things we find cute
in human babies, such as big, forward facing eyes, says
Gabby Salazov, a environmental social scientist and National Geographic explorer.
We're genetically designed to love and nurture babies and baby
ish animals, such as the panda, which appears on the

(23:13):
WWF logo reap. The benefits being on the A list
comes with yet another benefit, what psychologists call the halo effect.
This means that we mistakenly imbue attractive people in animals
with additional positive characteristics, such as moral goodness. It's why
so many movie heroes are equipped with gleaming teeth and

(23:34):
chiseled jaws, and so many villains have scars. But in reality,
both with humans and animals, prettiness doesn't equal benevolence or courage,
and neither does ugliness equal nastiness or cowardice. Just look
at the two can quote. I love twocans, but they
don't just use that beak to eat fruit, says Salazar.

(23:56):
They also use that beak to scoop up baby birds
from other birds nests, not something you'd see too, can
sam from fruit loops doing so, how do we fix
this pr problem? How do we get the animal kingdom's
outcasts more attention and the conservation dollars they deserve? Salazar says.
One key is to tell better stories. For starters, we

(24:18):
can highlight the benefits some of these animals provides, such
as the vulture's role in garbage disposal. This is actually
a century's old strategy and a tongue in cheek letter
to his daughter, Ben Franklin questioned the candidacy of the
bald eagle as a national emblem. He argued that dumpy
turkey was respectable and a bird of courage that defended

(24:41):
its home turf, just as the American colonists defended theirs.
He contrasted this with the bald eagle, which Franklin called
a bird of bad moral character and accused of stealing
fish from other birds, which it does. Another strategy is
to reframe these animals supposedly bad carearacteristics. For instance, the

(25:02):
vulture's unpleasant looking bald head is in fact a clever
way to help keep the bird from collecting germs in
its feathers when it's eating carcasses. The sloth's alleged laziness
is really a brilliant evolutionary adaptation. Its slowness is a
super efficient way to survive on a low energy leaf

(25:22):
filled diet. The naked mole rat may look like a wrinkly,
bucktoothed hot dog, but this quirky creature has evolved to
survive without oxygen for eighteen minutes. One other idea is
to lean into these animals freakiness. Salazar says there's some
new research on water being called ugly cute animals quote

(25:46):
ugly cute animals or animals that are so weird or
not stereotypically cute that they actually end up being fun
and make a smile and laugh. She says some species
are wacky enough that they can benefit from this ugly
cute fun nomenon. Exhibit A is the blobfish, an Internet
star with its ugly mug featured next to captions such

(26:08):
as how I Feel on Mondays. Salas are sites a
recent study on probosis monkeys and how Internet memes correlated
with an increase in donations to protect these Southeast Asian primates. Quote.
In this attention economy, there's some novelty and humor we
could capitalize on, she says, So let's get the revolution started.

(26:31):
It's time to embrace the outcasts. Here's to hoping that
one day we see cartoon naked mole rats on cereal boxes,
college football teams named the Vultures, and a blobfish getting
its own Pixar movie. For now, across these pages we
celebrate the bizarrely brilliant traits and behaviors of these d
list creatures. And now we'll share just a small portion

(26:57):
of an article in The Guardian about the importance of
the ocean being realized. David Attenborough, just a earshy of
his one hundred birthday, has said that he's come to
the realization that the most important place on Earth is
not on land but at sea, and this message, backed

(27:17):
by undeniable indicators of poor ocean health, has boosted calls
for more ocean governance and protection. They had a UN
Ocean summit in Nice, France and decided that if ever
there was a defining moment for the ocean, it was
happening here. There was also a sense of this sentiment

(27:39):
being shared in the wider world, where, partly thanks to
the Summit, many are finally waking up to the reality
of the serious decline of something that makes up more
than seventy percent of Earth's surface. That will be all
for today's Diary of Science and Nature. Your reader was
Kelly Taylor. Now stay tuned for the Health Corner on

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