Irish Examiner view: Beware this new race to the bottom of the ocean

Irish Examiner

10 hours ago

Space, as Captain Kirk used to remind us, is the 'final frontier'. But the environment that might concern us most in the next 50 years is the ocean.
As a country that has a long coastline, more than 7,500km of it, and extensive claims to the seabeds that surround us, we must pay close attention to what is happening on the seas, beneath them, and above the ocean waves.
For those who value our native birdlife — and that is all of us, surely — Ireland's belated efforts to recognise and protect the breeding and feeding grounds which create a diversity of species are a welcome, if overdue, move.
Birdwatch Ireland wants the Government to catch up with European colleagues in designating key locations — 73 in our case, 24 of them out at sea — as protected areas. These include marine locations where birds gather in numbers to eat, preen, and socialise.
There are increasing threats, including intensive offshore developments, such as wind farms. Greedy eyes are being cast over myriad opportunities to colonise the seas, which go way beyond the current human depredations of intensive fishing, plastic pollution, and climate change.
Last month's UN conference on the oceans in Nice — non-participants included the US, of course — spent much time focusing on the potential impact of deep-sea mining.
This is an activity that has only been undertaken on a small exploratory scale so far, but runs the risk of expanding exponentially as the pursuit of the world's rare minerals — the ones needed to power technology and energy transition — rapidly gathers pace.
Deep-sea mining involves extracting resources from ocean floors rich in cobalt, manganese, nickel, and copper, often at depths of between 4,000-6,000m. US president Donald Trump has already issued an executive order entitled 'Unleashing America's Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources'.
This observes that the US has a 'core national security and economic interest' in developing seabed minerals. UN restrictions, it says, would be 'inconsistent' with its sovereignty.
But the US is far from alone in its ambitions.
Norway, with its huge experience in oil and gas exploration, is in the vanguard of countries jockeying for position. Canada and South Korea are also prime movers. China and Russia, in the Arctic, view deep-sea mining as a vital element of longer-term geopolitical strategies.
Some analysts believe that there is a $17 trillion profit to be gained, mainly for private mining companies. But in the enthusiasm to stake a claim in the new Klondike, little thought has been given to the net costs and environmental and economic impacts.
Some scientists worry that entire ecosystems could be destroyed by devastating the sea floor and that marine life would be smothered by plumes of sediment.
We are one of the 37 countries that have backed a precautionary moratorium and called for more research.
Anyone who has watched David Attenborough's most recent National Geographic documentary, Ocean, on Disney+ — some critics say it is his greatest and most challenging work — will appreciate the scale of threat to marine life. But mineral exploitation is a topic which is barely on the radar of the general public at this time.
This will change as consequences become apparent. Humankind may remember what happened to the Ancient Mariner in the poem by Samuel Coleridge, when he had the temerity to interfere recklessly in the natural order of life.
In that case, the unfortunate seaman was lucky enough to find redemption and salvation by changing his ways. Based on current evidence, we may not be so fortunate.
'Beat the Lotto' a reminder of simpler times
Because there is plenty to make us grimace in 2025, anything which leavens the mixture, or transports us back to more innocent, less frenetic, times is welcome.
Into that category should be placed Ross Whitaker's enjoyable account of a syndicate's 1992 attempt to game the national lottery, ensure the jackpot prize for themselves, beat the system, and earn the admiration of many, if not quite all, fellow citizens for their cheek and enterprise.
Stefan Klincewicz speaking with Pat Kenny on his TV chat show in the 1990s in the new documentary, 'Beat the Lotto'.
Beat the Lotto, which reaches cinemas this weekend, recreates the caper where a group, headed by Cork mathematician and accountant Stefan Klincewicz, devised a cunning plan to buy every possible lottery combination requiring some two million number squares to be filled in by hand.
The story of what happened is an irresistible tribute to ingenuity and the concept that hope springs eternal in the human breast. And our collective love for some good-tempered roguish humour.
Ocean's Eleven it's not, but its portrayal of Ireland in the late 1980s/early '90s, the dog days before the arrival of the Celtic Tiger and the era when booms were getting boomier, is unmissable.
It's a shame, but perhaps understandable that the National Lottery didn't take the chance to contribute but, as the director says, they 'didn't remember the episode all that fondly'.
Like another foundation story of 21st-century Ireland, the movie Saipan, which retells the story of the schism between Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy before the 2002 World Cup, it's an episode which could, perhaps, only have been created here. And it's none the worse for that.
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Long-awaited reforms to defamation law
Long-awaited reforms to Ireland's restrictive and punitive libel laws were finally passed by the Dáil this week, but not without some grudging commentary from TDs, which will fuel opinions that the bill doesn't go nearly far enough.
It is unfortunate that the requirement for complainants to pass a 'serious harm' threshold was placed in the 'too difficult' tray by those who drafted the legislation, as it affects retail and hospitality businesses.
Challenging a suspected shoplifter or someone exhibiting excessively lairy behaviour at a nightclub remains a gamble, and there remains no meaningful deterrent to frivolous or vexatious defamation claims.
Hard-pressed shopkeepers and managers — and there are plenty of those in Ireland's villages, towns, and cities — will still have to decide whether to defend actions and incur costs which can rise to €20,000 or turn to their insurance and incur higher premiums.
Even a victory may offer scant chance of recovery if the complainant has no means to pay. This aspect of the new law will fail to change behaviour despite justice minister Jim O'Callaghan's exhortation that businesses should 'not take the easy route' and pay out.
Many of the headlines have already been generated by the legal changes which have removed jury trial from the equation, and the 83-61 vote in favour now sends the proposals forward to the Seanad.
Ireland's defamation laws have remained unaltered since 2009, since then we have seen the explosive growth of social media and the creation of a Wild West of opinion and commentary which is instant, and often egregious and untrue.
Simultaneously, much of what is often categorised as 'old mainstream media' has seen revenues migrate to online competitors.
Public understanding of the changed financial circumstances lags the actual reality. Thousands of newspapers around the globe have closed, and many thousands of journalists have lost their jobs. While this produces a tune on the world's smallest violin from some politicians, those losses are a worry for democracy and a threat to the common wealth.
Even as the bill has been progressing it has been marked by litigation which proved again that defending an action by a libel claimant is a precarious pastime.
This week, Ryan Casey, the partner of murdered schoolteacher Ashling Murphy, won substantial damages from the BBC after it broadcast a discussion about the content of his victim impact statement in its Northern Ireland political programme The View.
It was the second court defeat in Ireland in recent weeks for the corporation after Gerry Adams won damages of €100,000 in a case which incurred costs of between €3m-€5m.
These eye-watering sums would drive many publishers out of business. Ireland's new bill includes a public interest defence provided statements are published in good faith and reasonable enquiries and checks have been made prior to publication.
Such an argument has never been successfully run in the Republic. Whether there is a queue of editors lining up to be the first to test its efficacy is questionable, but there must be protections for honest journalism and enquiry, particularly at a local level where resources are stretched to the thinnest.
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