Topical Guide 727
Mark Dorset
Spoliation: Humankind’s Talent for
What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 39:
I’d become entranced with Rarotonga
[What, I wonder, would Ariane make of the following?]
Pete McKenzie, “The Tiny Nation at the Vanguard of Mining the Ocean Floor,” The New York Times, May 9, 2024:
The Cook Islands is at the vanguard of a quest to mine the ocean floor for minerals used in electric car batteries. Mining these deposits has never been attempted on a large scale, but their reserves are so vast, proponents argue, that extracting them could power the world’s shift away from fossil fuels. […]
But seabed mining faces stiff opposition from environmentalists, who worry that it would harm the ecology of the deep sea. More than 800 scientists have called for a moratorium on the practice, as have France, the United Kingdom and major companies like Google and BMW. […]
“The government is aggressively promoting deep sea mining,” said Duncan Currie, an adviser to the High Seas Alliance and other international conservation organizations. “They seem to be pursuing seabed mining regardless of adverse effects.” […]
Rich deposits of phosphates, a fertilizer ingredient, once brought vast riches to Nauru [another tiny Pacific nation], but mismanagement and alleged corruption plunged the nation into poverty. Now its people live in a desolate, strip-mined moonscape.
[My excerpted version does not tell the whole story. Proponents of seabed mining say it would help the Cook Islands overcome its dependence on tourism. The full article is here.]
Joni Mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi”:
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.
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You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here.
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