Pendleton comments at AAAS featured on blog about deep sea mining
One of the major issues with deep-sea mining is that so little is known about its implications on the environment. Scientists are unable to extrapolate what kinds of populations would be affected by extensive mining because the deep sea is still largely unexplored, and the biodiversity in prospective mining areas so incredibly vast. Due to the lack of knowledge about these ecosystems, no one can say whether they are resilient enough to withstand such trauma. At the recent American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Chicago, scientists and lecturers were invited to speak about Meeting Global Challenges: Discovery and Innovation. Lecturers included Columbia University faculty and Linwood Pendleton, senior scholar in the Ocean and Coastal Policy Program at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. Pendleton, as part of a panel on deep sea ecosystems, touched on policy issues: “We know a lot about a few places, but nobody is dealing with the deep sea as a whole, and that lack of general knowledge is a problem for decision-making and policy.” These questions only add to the difficulty of creating regulations regarding deep sea environments.
