Dumb as we are, humans are still finding new ways to wipe out life on earth. The latest wheeze is deep sea mining, in which genocidal capitalists hunt for minerals and metals by tearing up the seabed, demolishing fragile undersea ecosystems we’ve barely begun to explore or understand. Add to this our love of chronic overfishing, plastic pollution and coral bleaching, and we’re properly giving the oceans what for. Which is a shame, given they’re currently keeping us alive. The oceans are underwater rainforests. Marine plants – yer seaweed, yer kelp, yer algae – produce more than half of the world’s oxygen, which is handy for those of us who need oxygen to live. They suck up and store carbon dioxide, which is also handy because carbon dioxide is going to kill us if we let it. Going to war with the sea, pumping it full of pollution and plastic, emptying it of fish with supertrawlers, and sending in massive industrial machinery to mine its beds, tear its ecosystems to shreds and risk releasing carbon sinks, seems a little unwise.
Ocean sanctuaries: 30 by 30
Greenpeace has been campaigning for a global treaty to create ocean sanctuaries safe from overfishing, mining and other assorted dipshitteries. With less than 1% of our oceans currently protected, climate scienticians reckon we need to up that to at least 30% by 2030. While my knowledge of maritime law comes solely from Arrested Development – a show that ran for two and a half seasons and then no more seasons after that – Greenpeace thinks this treaty could be a goer. To that end, their local groups have run photo exhibitions to big up the sea, campaigned against supertrawlers, run lockdown watch parties of Greenpeace’s Ocean Witness shows, and rage-tweeted Zac Goldsmith to have him do something about it. Less locally, plucky activists carried out peaceful protests against DeepGreen and GSR, two of the companies gagging for deep sea mining because they prefer money to humans and fish.
Some of this worked. A bit. Keen as it was on deep sea mining, following the outcry from campaigners and some half-decent MPs, the UK government agreed to review its former position on ocean protection, its former position being Smack That Bitch Up. Its review is due to conclude in July at which point, I assume, James Dyson will be allowed to hoover up the whole of the ocean floor for lols.
We did a thing
Hoping to avoid that, this weekend local Greenpeacers – yer poorly old Zero among them – took to the water with home-made banners made from old bedsheets, giving their protest a decent environmental footprint and the vibe of a middle class prison riot. Together, hundreds of protest photos from across the country will spam the arse off social media, accompany local and national press releases to raise awareness of the dangers of deep sea mining, and be sent directly to government in the hope they actually do the right thing.
We can do without deep sea mining. We can do without whatever shit the sea’s hiding that dumbasses want to monetise. We can’t do without the oceans, their ecosystems, their oxygen or their carbon sinks. You should add your name to the call for the global ocean treaty, sign one of the petitions against deep sea mining and give a couple of seabeds Boris Johnson’s personal phone number. Maybe buy him some B&Q vouchers. Whatever it takes.
