The Bright Side

We may have passed peak fish. And the Arctic Ocean may be producing less food for marine mammals. And the oceans may, in general, be getting more acidic.

But why accentuate the negative? There's gold in them thar abyssal zones:

We're on the brink of the era of deep ocean mining, says a global pioneer in the study of sea floor mineral deposits. Dr. Steven Scott, a geologist at the University of Toronto, in Toronto, Canada says that advances in marine geology and deep ocean technology have combined to make it realistic to go more than two kilometres underwater for gold and other mineral treasures.

It's a transformation that he says has evoked a knee-jerk reaction over the possible environmental impacts of this mining, which he believes could be less destructive than terrestrial mining.

"Knee-jerk," indeed. Granted, almost every man-made wasteland on earth has some eminent academic as its genius loci...but why worry about something that might go wrong, when there are valuable mineral resources at stake?

Besides, even if the worst happens, we can always aestheticize it, and be undiscerning consumers of death, as we were of life.