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Comment by protomolecule | Hacker News Reader

"Nauru, a tiny Pacific island country, has successfully pushed the ISA to allow exploitation applications to be submitted, even in the absence of a mining code.

The clock is ticking as Canada's The Metals Company (TMC)—an industry giant—and Nauru Ocean Resources Inc (NORI), its subsidiary, move forward with plans to harvest mineral-rich "polymetallic nodules" in the Clarion-Clipperton fracture zone (CCZ) in the Pacific.

An application from the Nauru government on behalf of NORI to start commercial mining operations is being prepared for submission to the ISA."

Great. They ruined their own island [0] and now they want to ruin oceanic ecosystems.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauru#Effects_of_mining

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Environmental protection is the most important worldwide need, its the case for global regulation and independent enforcement that transcends counties.

The phosphate ran out and GDP per capita is 12k. What other options do they have? They are just trying to survive so of course they will exploit/be exploited.

> What other options do they have?

Move? Better idea than burn the world. There is only 12k inhabitants. What's the strange idea that somehow you have a lifelong given right by the universe to live somewhere no matter what just because that's how it always was? I see that entitlement as well when people 'need' to live in a city they cannot afford; why do you think you somehow can do that if you can no longer afford it? If things change and you cannot live somewhere anymore, why does the place have to change and not you?

For better or worse, Nauru is a sovereign state and they can pretty much do whatever they want in their EEZ. Where are you proposing they move to, exactly? No other country wants them. And is some other country supposed to annex the territory? I expect Australia would oppose any change in the status quo considering how they benefit from the current arrangement.

> they can pretty much do whatever they want in their EEZ

This reminds me of an old Simpsons episode, where Bart and Lisa both close their eyes and declare that they're going to punch and kick the air in their personal space, and it's the other person's fault if they get hit. Inevitably, they're hitting each other a moment later.

This 18th-century notion of "I can do whatever I want on my land" doesn't work, because we now understand that the impacts actually go outside of whatever boundary we've drawn. Pollution, water flow, noise, animals, insects, pollen, dust, etc don't magically stop and reset at arbitrary borders.

If what someone is doing on their patch of the Earth is harming their neighbors, of course their neighbors have a right to prevent (or mitigate, be compensated for, etc) that harm.

It's easy to criticize. What are you proposing as an alternative exactly? Do you want some other country to invade Nauru and make them stop?

That's easy. Use the favorite tool of the West: put economic sanctions on Nauru and on anyone who buys from them the resources mined from the ocean floor.

> For better or worse, Nauru is a sovereign state and they can pretty much do whatever they want in their EEZ.

The area in question is not in Nauru's EEZ. It's approximately between Hawaii and Mexico.

Move where and with what money?

>GDP per capita is 12k

That's a lot. Billion of people will envy them.

Who do you mean “they”?

Nauru was colonized by the west in the 1800s and much of the phosphate mining happened well before they got their independence.

Have they stopped it after 1968? The West is guilty too, of course. Mind you, it's a Canadian company that partners with them and wants to mine the ocean floor.

Most significant mining ventures are registered on the Canadian Toronto resources exchange - the TSX - it's the single largest (non energy) global resource market by a long shot.

Canadian, British, Australian, Russian, South African, etc. companies can be found there.

TMC is arguably Australian .. and it's CEO | founder is worth a look just for the "totally not an evil mastermind" vibes given off:

    Described as ‘Australia’s Elon Musk’, University of Southern Queensland Business graduate Gerard Barron has finalised the business collaboration of his career, that has the potential to revolutionise the renewable energy space.

~ https://www.unisq.edu.au/study/why-unisq/unisq-stories/testi...

Heavy greenwashing on a chap associated with more than a few questionable snake oil like operations.

Not many fans either:

https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/68431/a-lette...

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