Deep-Sea Mining's Kinda Sus: Whales and Dolphins Bout to Get Rekt? 🐳📉

The Deets

Okay, so listen up, fam. There's this Vancouver-based company, The Metals Company Inc. (eye roll), that's tryna get jiggy with deep-sea mining in the Pacific. They're all hyped about these polymetallic nodules they wanna snatch up, saying it's gonna be clutch for green energy and less sus than land mining.

But here's the tea: scientists are side-eyeing the whole operation. Two studies just dropped, and they're saying the noise pollution from the mining could seriously mess with whales, dolphins, and other sea creatures. Like, imagine tryna vibe underwater and all you hear is constant construction noises. That's a whole mood killer, right?

One study pointed out that we don't even know the half of it when it comes to how noise affects these animals. And get this, some "soniferous fish" are at "elevated risk".

The second study, shoutout to Greenpeace for funding it, actually recorded cetaceans in the area, including sperm whales, Risso's dolphins, and common dolphins. They're basically saying, "Yo, these animals live here! We need to protect the vibes!"

But The Metals Company is straight-up dismissing the noise study, saying their data shows it's not a big deal for the marine mammals. Like, okay, but can we get some more receipts, please? Critics are saying we lowkey need more info on how this mining is gonna affect the deep-sea ecosystem.

Bottom line: this whole situation is kinda sus. We gotta figure out if getting those nodules is worth potentially messing up the ocean's vibe. The ocean is like our planet's bloodstream. Let's not give it a blood clot or something.