Environmental Impacts
Nodule mining could affect tens of thousands of square kilometers of deep sea ecosystems. Nodule regrowth takes decades to millions of years and that would make such mining an unsustainable and nonrenewable practice. Humans have little knowledge of the vast number of deep-sea species that occur and their biology, making predictions about the effects of mining extremely uncertain. Thus, nodule mining could cause habitat alteration, direct mortality of benthic creatures, or suspension of sediment, which can smother filter feeders.
Read more about this topic: Manganese Nodule
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“We are no longer in a state of growth; we are in a state of excess. We are living in a society of excrescence.... The boil is growing out of control, recklessly at cross purposes with itself, its impacts multiplying as the causes disintegrate.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)