By Olivia Rosane is a staff writer for Common Dreams from Dec 02, 2024
Environmental organizations cheered as Norway’s controversial plans to move forward with deep-sea mining in the vulnerable Arctic Ocean were iced on Sunday.
The pause was won in Norway’s parliament by the small Socialist Left (SV) Party in exchange for its support in passing the government’s 2025 budget.
“Today marks a monumental victory for the ocean, as the SV Party in Norway has successfully blocked the controversial plan to issue deep-sea mining licenses for the country’s extended continental shelf in the Arctic,” Steve Trent, CEO and founder of the Environmental Justice Foundation, said in a statement. “This decision is a testament to the power of principled, courageous political action, and it is a moment to celebrate for environmental advocates, ocean ecosystems, and future generations alike.”
Norway sparked outrage in January when its parliament voted to allow deep-sea mining exploration in a swath of its Arctic waters larger than the United Kingdom. Scientists have warned that mining the Arctic seabed could disturb unique hydrothermal vent ecosystems and even drive species to extinction before scientists have a chance to study them. It would also put additional pressure on all levels of Arctic Ocean life—from plankton to marine mammals—at a time when they are already feeling the impacts of rising temperatures and ocean acidification due to the burning of fossil fuels.
“The Arctic Ocean is one of the last pristine frontiers on Earth, and its fragile ecosystems are already under significant stress from the climate crisis,” Trent said. “The idea of subjecting these waters to the destructive, needless practice of deep-sea mining was a grave threat, not only to the marine life depending on them but to the global community as a whole.”
“Thankfully, this shortsighted and harmful plan has been halted, marking a clear victory in the ongoing fight to protect our planet’s blue beating heart,” Trent continued.
In June, Norway announced that it would grant the first exploratory mining licenses in early 2025. However, this has been put on hold by the agreement with the SV Party.
“This puts a stop to the plans to start deep-sea mining until the end of the government’s term,” party leader Kirsti Bergstø said, as The Guardian reported.
Norway next holds parliamentary elections in September 2025, so no licenses will be approved before then.
The move comes amid widespread opposition to deep-sea mining in Norway and beyond. A total of 32 countries and 911 marine scientistshave called for a global moratorium on the practice. More than 100 E.U. parliamentarians wrote a letter opposing Norway’s plans specifically, and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has sued to stop them.
“This is a major and important environmental victory!” WWF-Norway CEO Karoline Andaur said in a statement. “SV has stopped the process for deep seabed mining, giving Norway a unique opportunity to save its international ocean reputation and gain the necessary knowledge before we even consider mining the planet’s last untouched wilderness.”
Haldis Tjeldflaat Helle, the deep-sea mining campaigner at Greenpeace Nordic, called the decision “a huge win.”
“After hard work from activists, environmentalists, scientists, and fishermen, we have secured a historic win for ocean protection, as the opening process for deep-sea mining in Norway has been stopped,” Helle said in a statement. “The wave of protests against deep-sea mining is growing. We will not let this industry destroy the unique life in the deep sea, not in the Arctic nor anywhere else.”
However, Norway’s Arctic waters are not entirely safe yet.
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, of the Labour Party, toldTV2, on Sunday, “This will be a postponement.”
The government said that other work to begin the process of deep-sea mining, such as drafting regulations and conducting environmental impact surveys, would move forward. Norway is currently governed by the Labour and Center parties. The two parties leading in polls for September’s elections—the Conservatives and Progress Party—also both back deep-sea mining, according toReuters.
“If a new government attempts to reopen the licensing round we will fight relentlessly against it,” Frode Pleym, who leads Greenpeace Norway, told Reuters.
Other environmental groups tempered their celebrations with calls for further action.
Trent of the Environmental Justice Foundation said that “while today is a cause for celebration, this victory must not be seen as the end of the struggle.”
“We urge Norway’s government, and all responsible global actors, to make this a lasting victory by enshrining protections for the Arctic Ocean and its ecosystems into law, and coming out in favor of a moratorium or ban on deep-sea mining,” Trent added. “It is only through a collective commitment to sustainability and long-term stewardship of our oceans that we can ensure the health of the marine environment for generations to come.”
Trent concluded: “Today, thanks to the SV Party and all those around the world who spoke up against this decision, the ocean has won. Now, let’s ensure this victory lasts.”
Andaur of WWF said that this was a “pivotal moment” for Norway to “demonstrate global leadership by prioritizing ocean health over destructive industry.”
As WWF called on Norway to abandon its mining plans, it also urged the nation to reconsider its exploitation of the ocean for oil and gas.
“Unfortunately, we have not seen similar efforts to curtail the Norwegian oil industry, which is still getting new licenses to operate in Norwegian waters, including very vulnerable parts of the Arctic,” Andaur said. “Norway needs to explore new ways to make money without extracting fossil fuels and destroying nature.”
Greenpeace also pointed to the role Norway’s pause could play in bolstering global opposition to deep-sea mining.
“Millions of people across the world are calling on governments to resist the dire threat of deep-sea mining to safeguard oceans worldwide,” Greenpeace International Stop Deep-Sea Mining campaigner Louisa Casson said. “This is a huge step forward to protect the Arctic, and now it is time for Norway to join over 30 nations calling for a moratorium and be a true ocean champion.”
Editor’s note: There is no way mining can be done in a “sustainable way and with acceptable consequences,” whether it is on land or in the sea. It is not a question of if we don’t, we will have to continue to use open pit mines and mountaintop removal. These forms of mining will continue regardless. Deep sea mining will only add to it. Norway likes to be perceived as a net-zero hero but the reality is that behind all of those electric cars and heat pumps, Norway is a major exporter of fossil fuels, and uses the income to pay for the new technologies. And now Norway wants to be a leader in deep-sea mining, too. This demonstrates that Norway is a country that cares little for the natural world if it means giving up its extractive economy for the conviences of a modern lifestyle. If mining is involved, there will be no green transition.
Norway’s parliament has voted to allow deep-sea mining to commence in the Norwegian Sea, a move that has garnered criticism from scientists and environmentalists: While the Norwegian government insists that it can conduct deep-sea mining in a sustainable way, critics say these activities will put marine ecosystems and biodiversity at risk.
The Skandinavian country will open a 281,000-square-kilometer (108,500-square-mile) area of the ocean for deep-sea mining, which mostly falls along its continental shelf.
This result was already anticipated in December 2023 after Norway’s minority government negotiated a deal with opposition parties to open up the ocean off Norway’s coast to deep-sea mining.
Companies will now bid for exploration licences
The government previously proposed opening a 329,000-square-kilometer (127,000-square-mile) portion of the Norwegian Sea to deep-sea mining. However, this was later reduced to 281,000 km2 (108,500 mi2), an area nearly the size of Italy. Most of this region falls across Norway’s extended continental shelf, which is technically in international waters, but over which Norway has jurisdiction. Another portion falls within the territorial waters of the Svalbard archipelago, which Norway claims as its own exclusive economic zone, although this is contested by nations such as Russia, Iceland, the U.K. and several EU countries.
Experts say they believe the next step could be the Norwegian Offshore Directorate, the government agency responsible for regulating petroleum resources, inviting companies to bid for exploration licenses, which could happen as early as this year. However, there’s currently no public timeline of forthcoming events.
Norway intends to mine for minerals such as magnesium, cobalt, copper, nickel and rare-earth metals found in manganese crusts on seamounts and sulfide deposits on active, inactive or extinct hydrothermal vents. The government says seabed mining is necessary to ensure that Norway is able to succeed in a “green transition.”
“We need to cut 55% of our emissions by 2030, and we also need to cut the rest of our emissions after 2030,” Astrid Bergmål, Norway’s state secretary for the energy minister, told Mongabay. “So, the reason for us to look into seabed minerals is the large amount of critical minerals that will be needed for many years.”
Critics, however, say that minerals for renewable energy technologies could be obtained from land-based sources and recycling processes.
Doubts about “clean” deep-sea mining
Bergmål said deep-sea mining will be done in a “step-by-step approach” and that it will only be permitted to go forward if the Norwegian government can ensure it will be done in a “sustainable way and with acceptable consequences.”
“If there is one country that can do this in a stepwise manner … that is Norway,” Bergmål said, “because when we say that we are going to put the world’s highest standards with respect to environmental concerns, we do it in practice.”
Norway isn’t the only country with ambitions to mine the deep sea. Other nations, including the Cook Islands, China and Japan, are working on similar plans within their own jurisdictions.
Deep-sea mining explained in 5 minute video
The high seas, which are areas beyond national jurisdiction, have also been earmarked for seabed mining, particularly in a region of the Pacific Ocean known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, where there are vast expanses dotted with potato-shaped polymetallic nodules containing minerals like manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper. The International Seabed Authority (ISA), a U.N.-mandated mining regulator, has been overseeing negotiations to approve a set of rules that would govern this activity so it could potentially start in the near future.
Protesters ready to stop seabed mining industry
Peter Haugan, a scientist who serves as policy director of Norway’s Institute of Marine Research and director of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Bergen, said Norway’s plans go against scientific advice and could endanger marine biodiversity.
“Destroying very sensitive and vulnerable areas and eliminating biodiversity … is a real risk,” Haugan told Mongabay. “It’s really a sad day for Norway.”
Haugan said Norway’s decision could also be a “violation of the law” due to a lack of scientific evidence needed to assess the environmental impacts of future mining activities, which is legally needed for such decisions to be made.
Haldis Tjeldflaat Helle, a campaigner at Greenpeace Norway against deep-sea mining, who participated in a protest outside the Norwegian parliament on Jan. 9, said she’s still hopeful that environmentalists will be able to stop the industry before it goes ahead.
“We will use the tools we have available,” Helle told Mongabay. “We will continue to do activism against this disruptive industry and try to influence Norwegian politicians to stop deep-sea mining.”
Elizabeth Claire Alberts is a senior staff writer for Mongabay. Follow her on Twitter@ECAlberts.
Editor’s Note: We are witnessing the results of a culture in overshoot. Having extracted everything that is easily accessible on land, corporations are turning to the remote depths of the ocean in search of profitable metals. The fact that deep sea mining is being considered is proof that this way of life can’t last. Industrial mining will, of course, come to an end. And the world will be far better off if the mining is stopped before it destroys the ocean rather than after.
While the fight against deep sea mining has largely focused on areas beyond national jurisdiction, there are many national projects, like the one in Norway, that require opposition.
A living ocean is far more valuable than the metals that can be extracted from it.
Norway is moving forward with plans to mine its continental shelf to procure minerals critical for renewable energy technologies. However, some scientists, members of civil society and even industry leaders have raised concerns about Norway’s proposal, arguing that deep sea mining in this part of the ocean could cause widespread environmental harm.
The nation’s Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has proposed opening up a 329,000-square-kilometer (127,000-square-mile) portion of the Norwegian Sea to deep sea mining, an area nearly the size of Germany. The region overlaps with many marine areas previously flagged by Norwegian research institutes and government agencies as vulnerable or valuable. A study by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), a government agency responsible for regulating petroleum resources, found that this area holds significant quantities of minerals such as magnesium, cobalt, copper, nickel and rare-earth metals. Investigators found these minerals on manganese crusts on seamounts and sulfide deposits on active, inactive or extinct hydrothermal vents at depths of 700-4,000 meters (2,296-13,123 feet).
A sliver of this proposed mining area is within Norway’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The rest falls across the adjoining continental shelf — the gently sloping seabed stretching out from Norway’s mainland into the ocean — in international waters beyond Norway’s jurisdiction. However, Norway gained access to the continental shelf that borders its EEZ in 2009 after filing an application with the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, a U.N. body that manages extended access to the nations’ continental shelves. Norway’s access applies only to the seabed, not the water column or surface waters above the continental shelf.
Guillemots flying in the Svalbard and Jan Mayen region, a vulnerable area. Image by Rob Oo via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
In 2021, the Norwegian government began working on a mining impact assessment and released it for public consultation in October 2022. It received more than 1,000 responses, most from individuals, research institutes, environment agencies and other groups expressing opposition to Norway’s deep-sea mining plans.
One response came from the Norway Environment Agency, a government bureau under the Ministry of Climate and Environment. The agency raised several issues with the impact assessment, including that it did not provide adequate information about how mining could be done safely and sustainably. The agency argued that this omission violates the country’s Seabed Minerals Act, a legal framework created in 2019 for surveying and extracting minerals on the Norwegian continental shelf.
Now that the public consultation process has finished, the decision whether to open Norway’s EEZ and continental shelf to deep sea mining sits with the federal government. If the government does open the area, Norway could become one of the first nations to initiate deep-sea mining in its nearby waters. A few other countries, including China, Papua New Guinea, the Cook Islands and New Zealand, have explored starting similar projects, but none have begun full-scale exploitation. According to the Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority, a government agency responsible for regulating seabed minerals, the country has issued exploration licenses to obtain “the information necessary to inform future decisions about whether it will allow mining to commence in line with the precautionary approach.” In the case of New Zealand, its supreme court blocked a proposed seabed mining operation in 2021, generating a major stumbling block for the industry.
‘Enormous supply gap’
Walter Sognnes, the CEO of Loke Marine Minerals, one of three companies looking to mine Norway’s continental shelf, said he believes the deep sea is key to supplying the “increasing demand” for critical minerals. Loke is aiming to mine manganese crusts that occur on seamounts on Norway’s continental shelf, believed to hold cobalt and rare-earth metals worth billions of dollars.
“We need to solve this enormous supply gap that is coming … and we think deep-sea minerals are the right way to go,” Sognnes told Mongabay.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), today’s mineral supply will fall short of what’s needed to transform the energy sector, resulting in a delayed and more expensive transition to renewable technologies. A recent study in Nature Communications likewise suggested that demand will escalate as countries work to replace gas-combustion vehicles with electric ones. For instance, it suggested that if nations aim to make all vehicles electric by 2050, the global demand will increase by 7,513% for lithium, 5,426% for nickel, 2,838% for manganese and 2,684% for cobalt. The study also pointed out that most of these critical minerals were available only in “a few politically unstable countries such as Chile, Congo, Indonesia, Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa.”
While environmental experts argue that industries can obtain minerals through means such as battery recycling, Sognnes said he doesn’t think that will become a viable option for at least a couple of decades.
Mineral supply chains can also be complicated by geopolitical tensions with countries like China and Russia, which currently generate many critical minerals, Sogness said.
“You have to look at the alternatives,” he said. “We believe that if you apply the best technology and work together [to protect] the environment, deep sea minerals can be a better alternative, both on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) rating, but also on the geopolitical side, you can have a resource that makes us less dependent on China.”
An ESG rating is a measure of how well a company addresses environmental, social and governance risks.
Jan Mayen Island, adjacent to the proposed mining area. Image by Ian Geoffrey Stimpson via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
Sognnes said if Norway does open its continental shelf, Loke would not begin mining until early in the 2030s. He said it would first be necessary to map and explore the seabed and develop the best possible technologies. Loke plans to use excavation tools, thrusters and pumps to “scrape” the manganese crusts then transport them to a collection vessel.
Some researchers have suggested that plumes generated from deep sea mining extraction could be highly destructive by distributing sediment and dissolved metals across large swaths of the ocean, which would threaten organisms and introduce heavy metals into the pelagic food chain. However, Sognnes said he does not expect Loke’s crust cutting and collection to generate plumes.
Loke also recently acquired UK Seabed Resources (UKSR), a deep sea mining firm formerly owned by U.S. global security company Lockheed Martin. This acquisition has given Loke full ownership of two exploration licenses and partial ownership of another in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the Pacific Ocean. This proposed mining would focus on extracting polymetallic nodules, which are potato-shaped rocks containing critical minerals like manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper. Since the CCZ is located in international waters beyond any nations’ jurisdictions, mining activities there are regulated by the International Seabed Authority (ISA), a U.N.-affiliated body tasked with protecting the marine environment while ensuring nations receive equal access to minerals.
While the ISA has yet to issue an exploitation license for deep sea mining, it is working to finalize a set of regulations that could allow mining to start as early as next year — a move that has garnered criticism from governments, civil society organizations, research institutes and many other individuals and groups. Those in opposition say that not enough is known about the deep sea to accurately assess the impacts of mining, and that mining technology is not advanced enough to minimize harm. Additionally, critics say what is known about the deep sea suggests that mining could cause irreversible harm to habitats and species that are essential to the functioning of the ocean.
Some nations and delegates to the ISA are calling for a “precautionary pause” or a moratorium on deep sea mining until more research is conducted on the deep sea and the possible impacts of mining. France has even called for an outright ban.
Norway, an ISA council member, has generally supported swiftly completing the international mining regulations but stated at recent ISA meetings that no mining should proceed without the “necessary knowledge about ecosystems.”
Other Norwegian companies looking to mine in Norway include ADEPTH Minerals and Green Minerals. While Norwegian energy company Equinor previously expressed interest in deep-sea mining, the company called for a “precautionary approach” during the public consultation, saying experts must have sufficient time to properly understand the possible environmental consequences of deep-sea mining.
‘Too quick and too big’
Peter Haugan, a scientist who serves as policy director of Norway’s Institute of Marine Research and director of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Bergen, said the Norwegian government should not rush mining in the country’s continental shelf.
“Jumping right into mining and opening big areas for exploration first with the implication that there will be mining is a bit too quick and too big,” Haugan told Mongabay. “Normally, when we think about new industries that may be moving into areas in the ocean, we typically take small steps.”
Haugan said that while some academic research has been conducted on features like hydrothermal vents in the proposed mining area, more is needed to understand this deep-sea environment, the water column and the organisms that live there. Before mining is allowed to proceed, he said researchers need to conduct extensive baseline studies to understand the impacts for both the mining area and the wider environment, which would be hard to do within short timespans.
“It’s very difficult to imagine that a single company getting a license for a small area will be prepared to do the environmental baseline that is needed in their area and in the surrounding areas, which may be affected and which may have connected ecosystems,” Haugan said.
According to an assessment by the Institute of Marine Research, there is a lack of information for 99% of the proposed mining area.
Kaja Lønne Fjærtoft, a marine biologist and global policy lead at WWF, told Mongabay it’s difficult to “nail down the actual consequence” of deep-sea mining on the Norwegian shelf without more knowledge of the environment, technology and mining impacts. Based on what is known, she said there is concern that mining manganese crusts or sulfide deposits could have widespread effects on species through the destruction of habitat, generation of harmful plumes and noise pollution. (Sognnes of Loke, however, said his company’s proposed operations would not target unique habitats or generate plumes and would produce minimal noise.)
A minke whale near Svalbard. Image by Rob Oo via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
Transboundary concerns
Norway’s plans also raise several transboundary concerns. For one, mining activities could impact fisheries operating in the water above the extended continental shelf, Fjærtoft said.
“We don’t have exclusive rights to fisheries above it, so the mining that could happen in the seabed could impact international fisheries because most of the [proposed mining] areas are also in areas where like the U.K. would be fishing, the EU would be fishing,” she said. “And that’s not really accounted very well for in the impact assessment.”
According to 2019 data, the U.K. and several EU countries fish in the proposed deep sea mining area, targeting species like shrimp, cod, sole, haddock and mussels.
Norway submitted its impact assessment to Denmark and Iceland in accordance with the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment, which requires parties to disclose if activities could cause transboundary environmental harm. Denmark’s Environmental Protection Agency wrote a letter to the Norwegian Environment Agency, arguing that the mining’s possible effects on seabirds and marine mammals have not been thoroughly investigated, according to documents reviewed by Mongabay.
Another issue is that part of Norway’s proposed mining area falls across the continental shelf of Svalbard, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. The Svalbard Treaty, which 48 countries have ratified, recognizes Norway’s sovereignty over Svalbard but also specifies that parties have equal rights to engage in commercial activities there. However, in a letter viewed by Mongabay, Iceland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs informed the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the exploitation of any mineral resources on Svalbard’s continental shelf was “subject to the provisions of the Svalbard Treaty, including the principle of equality.” In other words, Norway couldn’t claim sole ownership of these resources.
“If Norway actually goes ahead with extraction of seabed minerals, it will be the first time the Svalbard Treaty — in terms of extractive seabed resources, including oil and gas — is tested in that region,” Fjærtoft said. “This will set precedent for future potential oil and gas extraction in this area.”
Fjærtoft also argues that Norway’s plans for deep sea mining contradict its commitments as a founding member of the Ocean Panel, a global initiative that aims to help member nations “sustainably manage” 100% of their national marine waters by 2025.
A fulmar fishing in Svalbard waters. Image by Alastair Rae via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).
In a paper, the Ocean Panel stated that nations should take a precautionary approach to deep-sea mining and that regulations and knowledge should be in place by 2030 to “to ensure that any activity related to seabed mining is informed by science and ecologically sustainable.”
More recently, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, the current head of the Ocean Panel, said in an interview with a Norwegian paper in March that deep-sea mining can be one of three sustainable ocean actions Norway can set in motion and that deep-sea mining could be done in a way that doesn’t harm marine biodiversity. Støre’s comments garnered criticism from environmental NGOs.
Haugan, who serves as co-chair of the Ocean Panel’s Expert Group, said the Norwegian government’s course technically satisfies the panel’s “not very precise” statement directing a precautionary approach to deep sea mining. However, he said he was still concerned about how quickly things were moving.
“There is a real fear that the quality and quantity of those environmental investigations will not be sufficient,” Haugan said. “And therefore, there’s this big danger that this will run off and lead to inappropriate actions in the deep sea.”
What happens next?
Amund Vik, state secretary of Norway’s Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, the body forwarding the proposal to mine, told Mongabay the impact assessment, consultation impact and resource report from NPD “will form an important part of the decision basis on whether to open areas” to deep-sea mining. However, he emphasized that a decision to open the area wouldn’t necessarily result in commercial activities. Vik also said the government will submit a white paper about the issue to parliament in “spring.”
“A comprehensive permitting regime has been established in Norwegian legislation, and this regime is based upon a stepwise approach to allowing commercial activities to take place,” Vik said in an emailed statement. “Seabed mineral activities will only take place if it can be done in a prudent and sustainable manner.”
However, Fjærtoft said she believes if and when the Norwegian government does approve the opening of the proposed mining area, commercial activities could quickly begin. The nation’s Seabed Minerals Act specifies that companies may immediately apply for exploitation licenses alongside exploration licenses. According to Fjærtoft, companies are likely to opt for exploitation licenses because they confer exclusive rights to an area; exploration licenses, on the other hand, are nonexclusive.
“Norway could be the first country to give an exploitation license,” Fjærtoft said. “If they do that, that is heavily criticizable because you definitely do not have enough knowledge to be able to assess anything on the impact of exploitation. You don’t even have enough to assess impacts of exploration.”
Elizabeth Claire Alberts is a senior staff writer for Mongabay. Follow her on Twitter @ECAlberts.
“The tough gangster type of detective fiction was of little use [in underground operations], and, in fact, likely to be a danger. Help and support to the Norwegian resistance could only be provided by [people] of character, who were prepared to adapt themselves and their views—even their orders at times—to other people and other considerations, once they saw that change was necessary. Common sense and adaptability are the two main virtues required in anyone who is to work underground, assuming a deep and broad sense of loyalty, which is the basic essential.” —Colonel John S. Wilson, leader of the Norwegian Section of the Special Operations Executive in British Exile during WWII
Thomas Gallagher’s 1975 book “Assault in Norway: Sabotaging the Nazi Nuclear Program” details a Norwegian-British covert operation carried out over the winter of 1942-43. I recommend this book for revolutionaries and serious activists, as it contains many details of how serious clandestine operations should be carried out, how to utilize intelligence and scouting, secure communications, subterfuge, proper use of terrain and other tactical advantages, and more.
The story revolves around the nuclear arms race. By 1942, U.S. and British nuclear physicists had discovered that creating an atomic bomb was a scientific possibility. This frightened them to no end, since they knew well that Germany had the most advanced nuclear research program on the planet.
Assuming that Germany had at least a 2-year research advantage, they began to look for vulnerabilities in the Nazi research program that could slow their progress toward a bomb.
A key element in this early nuclear research was “heavy water”—an isotope of standard water that can only be isolated and concentrated through the use of vast amounts of electricity. At the time, the only plant in Europe capable of creating significant amounts of heavy water was at the Norsk Hydro plant at Vemork, in Nazi-occupied Norway.
Hoping to stop the flow of heavy water in Germany, British and Norwegian-exile military intelligence hatched a plan to sabotage the Vemork plant and destroy the stockpiles of heavy water held there.
Vemork was situated in a natural fortress, located in a steep mountain valley perched on a ledge on a nearly sheer cliffside. Aerial bombing would almost certainly fail, so the plan they devised was to be carried out on foot.
In October 1942, four Norwegians tasked with reconnaissance and preparation parachuted onto the Hardanger Plateau, at the time 3500-square miles of wild, virtually inhabited land. They survived there for five frigid months, eating reindeer moss and the reindeer themselves, scouting the Vemork site, detailing the habits of guards and workers, and assessing approaches to the plant. Aided by a sympathetic local population, including workers at the plant, they gathered detailed intelligence on the location.
In February, six more men parachuted into the region. They connected with the original team and created a detailed sabotage plan, which they then carried out. I won’t share any more details here, as the harrowing story is worth reading in full.
Unlike many other World War II narratives, this is not a run-and-gun firefight story. It is a story of minute planning, survival and travel in a harsh environment, and precision action carried out using terrain advantages and intelligence-driven decision making.
As such, it is an ideal story for those of us engaged in asymmetric struggle to study.
Max Wilbert is a third-generation organizer who grew up in Seattle’s post-WTO anti-globalization and undoing racism movement, and works with Deep Green Resistance. He is the author of two books.
Editor’s note: “I think hope is really harmful for several reasons. False hopes bind us to unlivable situations, and they blind us to real possibilities. Does anybody really think that Weyerhaeuser is going to stop deforesting because we ask nicely? Does anybody really think that if a democrat would have gotten into the White House that things would be ok? Does anybody think that vivisectors will stop torturing animals just because we stand outside with a sign?
That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t stand out there with that sign. What it means is, do we really believe that they will stop because we do that? And if you don’t believe that, what does that mean? The book I have just recently completed is really centered around this question. Do you believe that the culture will undergo a voluntary transformation to obtain a sustainable way of living? If you don’t, what does that mean for our strategy and for our tactics? We don’t know. The reason we don’t know is that we don’t ask that question. The reason we don’t ask that question is that we’re so busy pretending that we have hope.” – Derrick Jensen December 1st, 2004
Why is it that so many people are always busy claiming that we need hope? One recent article I saw discusses “active hope” as if that is any different from regular “hope.” Hope is hopium, be it active hope, regular hope, passive hope, or resigned hope. Put almost any word you want (except “false”) in front of the word hope, and you will cause me to assume that you are selling something. Something that smells like bullshit.
Before I go into detail regarding hope along with more analysis that I am frequently doing, I came across this article courtesy of Jan Andrew Bloxham and Steve Pyke, which more or less succinctly wraps up exactly what I’ve been saying for the last decade. Short quotes really don’t do it justice as one really needs to read the entire article, but I’ll provide a snippet here:
“Biosphere Collapse: We Are in a Terminal Phase
The Sixth Mass Extinction is not a future risk—it is happening now, and human activity is the sole cause.
Extinction Rates: Current rates are 100–1,000 times higher than the “background” rate of the Cenozoic era. While the oft-cited “250–300 species per day” figure is debated (due to undercounting invertebrates and microbes), conservative estimates still suggest ~150 species lost daily. For context, the Permian-Triassic extinction (“The Great Dying”) wiped out 90% of species over 60,000 years. We’re matching that pace in decades.
Food Web Collapse: Phytoplankton (the base of marine food chains) have declined 40% since 1950. Insect biomass is dropping 2.5% annually, threatening pollination and soil health.
Conclusion: The biosphere is unravelling faster than evolution can adapt. Humans are not exempt—we are apex predators in a collapsing food web.”
Derrick Jensen told us about hope almost two decades ago and explained that the reason people think we need hope is through cultural conditioning, and this is how he describes hope, quote:
“Hope is, in fact, a curse, a bane. I say this not only because of the lovely Buddhist saying “Hope and fear chase each other’s tails,” not only because hope leads us away from the present, away from who and where we are right now and toward some imaginary future state. I say this because of what hope is.
More or less all of us yammer on more or less endlessly about hope. You wouldn’t believe — or maybe you would — how many magazine editors have asked me to write about the apocalypse, then enjoined me to leave readers with a sense of hope. But what, precisely, is hope? At a talk I gave last spring, someone asked me to define it. I turned the question back on the audience, and here’s the definition we all came up with: hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless.”
Going back to my first article here, the first thing one should determine is whether the situation being looked at is a problem or a predicament. A problem, by definition, has an answer or a solution. A predicament is often called different names such as dilemma, but Wikipedia calls it a “wicked problem.” Under the word dilemma is a less complex definition, where we once again see the word predicament under the “See Also” section. Here is the entry for dilemma on Wikipedia.
Something that is a problem one has agency over, meaning that there is a solution which is both attainable and feasible. Therefore, hope actually prevents one from attaining that goal, quote:
“When you give up on hope, you turn away from fear.“
So, in reality, for almost any problem, what we need is not hope, but COURAGE!
Of course, much has changed over the last 19 years since that article was written in terms of how the predicaments we face have become far worse. Still, nothing has really changed about society making any real efforts to abandon technology use and civilization. When I say things like that, I often get criticized for what is assumed that I want “to live like a cave man” or that I am “Malthusian” or that I just want to “give up.” I wrote The Cycle of Life specifically for those folks.
Now, for the bad news: predicaments don’t have solutions, they only have outcomes. Yes, my regular readers are most likely very tired of reading that same message over and over and over again. But here’s the catch – courage is great for predicaments too! An article by Frank Moone gives us details on what to do. In it, he says that: “Hiding out, giving up, or doing nothing is not an acceptable response.“
Of course, unfortunately, there are people who will do just that.Simply telling people what an acceptable response is won’t necessarily get them to comply. There are literally hundreds of books out there that describe the exact same things, but again, only people who want to do that will actually follow through. It really is absolutely not one bit different to people who read my articles versus people who couldn’t be less interested. No interest = no compliance, not that any readers will comply either (of course, I haven’t actually ever asked anybody to do anything – I’ve only made general recommendations). There are literally millions of people who simply do not care. Is it because of ignorance? Doubtful – as they’ve been told; they choose not to believe. Of course, belief is irrelevant to how the system works. It will continue to work the same way whether one believes in it or not, which is the great thing about facts. Not believing in them doesn’t change them.
The most important part about Frank’s article about “active acceptance” is what it doesn’t tell you. Sadly, the article is based partly on fear. Notice how it talks about survival? Here’s the part I disagree with, quote: “Leave a legacy of wisdom and care for future generations.“
Articles on “how to survive” are literally everywhere. Prepping handbooks, food preparation and storage, books about weapons, bunker building books, Earthships, Transition Towns, The Venus Project, and every other type of preparation manual, book, concept, and living arrangement are available at your nearest library or bookstore or online. I’ve written about countless ideas all based on the same premise. Fear of death. But what if survival is highly over-rated? What if there ARE NO future generations? What if the generation being born today is the last one? Needless to say, not everyone is going to be interested in accomplishing something they see no need for because they see it as a waste of time when they could be doing something they are actually passionate about. Focusing on surviving isn’t Living Now. Focusing on surviving is more or less similar to focusing on Dying Now. One must choose how he or she wants to live – do you want to run towards life or away from death?
Frank’s article is good – don’t get me wrong. But it repeats the same message that so many articles promoting survival do – let’s deny reality and promote false hope. One can fear death and choose to focus on attempting to evade it, but this is really the definition of insanity because humans have a natural instinct for survival to begin with (so one doesn’t have to really spend all their time remembering to survive) AND you still won’t escape it. Now, if one really wants to spend their time doing that, then no harm, no foul. If, on the other hand, one isn’t afraid of death and has no interest in such endeavors, then they shouldn’t be shamed for something they see no motivation for or satisfaction in.
Just because I’m passionate about reducing the amount of energy and resources I use doesn’t mean that I think it is OK to try to shame others into doing this as well in a misguided effort to reduce the planetary ecological footprint. It’s just not going to happen. The billionaires certainly couldn’t give two craps about what I’m doing one way or the other and they certainly aren’t going to change their lifestyles to accommodate what I think is important. My message is for people to accept our predicaments for what they are, discover what they are truly passionate about, and work towards that end, at the same time enjoying life and nature and being grateful for what still exists today.
To understand this just a bit deeper, one must understand personal values versus personal traits and the psychology behind them. Nate Hagens goes into detail on both the dark triad and the dark tetrad personality traits. One can claim specific values but have personality traits which oppose those values, which instantly points to the person being a liar (and potentially a pathological liar, which narcissists tend to be). Either way, traits will outcompete values in almost all circumstances. Most people’s traits and values are much closer in alignment to each other, but we all know people who fit into the dark triad and tetrad patterns.
I understand what many people in the overshoot community would like to see with regards to developing a sustainable community. I would very much like that myself. I actually seriously considered embarking on building one myself (following in the footsteps of many other individuals who have done this). But then I read countless stories of struggles from others, and enterprises that turned into something far less grand than had been anticipated. Many of these projects failed and even the ones which have succeeded haven’t truly met up with the original expectations. The MPP works just as prevalently in this regard as it does in mainstream society. I also knew about places in my own state which had originally been developed as utopian societies, such as the Kristeen Community, New Harmony, and Padanaram Settlement, which all failed as they were originally set up. The Padanaram Settlement is still in operation, but not like it was for many years. Like most places whose originator/founder has passed away, changes within the community have made it more like a regular town now.
I have attempted to point out many times that attachment to outcome is often associated with goal-setting and is generally ill-advised in the future that we will experience because of the fact that many if not most goals/outcomes will become impossible to meet. Some goals will be far more attainable than others, especially shorter-term ones versus long-term goals. Part of my advice comes from my own experiences. I have always been a rather goal-oriented person. Understanding overshoot means coming to terms with the reality that quite literally everything around us is changing and goals which once may have been attainable now no longer are, simply due to energy and resource decline and climate change, among many other symptom predicaments. This has been difficult to accept.
This is most certainly NOT to say to give up on any goals that one is passionate about, but to recommend being flexible about goals. Be aware of the strong possibility that your life may come apart at the seams when you least expect it. Why you ask? Because of the Technate of North America. Everything you thought you knew is about to change if it hasn’t already under the surface (or even on the surface). I don’t agree with everything in the article (it does appear to be overshoot blind), but the systems surrounding us here in the U.S. are being taken apart, one by one. It is true that collapse doesn’t generally happen in a controlled fashion because it isn’t under the control of any single person or entity. I agree wholeheartedly with that assessment.
Meanwhile, a new study shows that peak carbon sequestration was in 2008, and since then the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by plants has declined by an average of 0.25% a year. Another paper demonstrates that in 2023, the CO2 growth rate was 3.37 ± 0.11 ppm at Mauna Loa, which was 86% above that of the previous year and hit a record high since observations began in 1958, while global fossil fuel CO2 emissions only increased by 0.6% ± 0.5%. This implies an unprecedented weakening of land and ocean sinks, and raises the question of where and why this reduction happened. The rate at which climate change is proceeding is increasing dramatically. This was accurately predicted many years ago but is now happening. See also Carbon Sinks Are Becoming Carbon Sources.
Of course, something else that has been slowing for quite some time could easily bring an end to agriculture to parts of Europe. Here’s the quote that brings relevance to everything above in today’s article:
“A lot of discussion is, how should agriculture prepare for this,” he said. But a collapse of the heat-transporting circulation is a going-out-of-business scenario for European agriculture, he added. “You cannot adapt to this. There’s some studies of what happens to agriculture in Great Britain, and it becomes like trying to grow potatoes in Northern Norway.”
THAT is the overwhelming theme I have been attempting to explain for the last four years here. You cannot adapt to this. We’re not talking just about Great Britain, Europe, or anywhere specific. Leon Simons says this regarding the rate of warming globally:
“As far as we can determine, this is the fastest rate of warming in the history of our planet!“
The rate of change will overtake the rate of evolution whereby evolution cannot keep up with the changes. Rather than fall into denial of reality, utilize optimism bias, and attempt to bargain to maintain civilization, one must comprehend that there is no escaping this and that we lack agency (who exactly is “we”?), despite unsubstantiated claims to the contrary by those who are busy trying to sell you a fantasy that is not to be. Don’t fall into the hope trap – seek courage instead.
A new study on birds points out yet another symptom predicament I have repeatedly mentioned, especially recently – pollution loading. Here’s the poignant part of the article, quote:
“Ideally, you do not want these substances in your body, but in practice, it is virtually impossible for humans and many other living organisms to avoid them.
Recent research and a new method for detecting PFAS bring both bad and good news. The bad news is that we are finding PFAS in places we have not previously found them. The good news is that this means we have become better at detecting these substances.
“The biggest increase is in the livers of wading birds. We found up to 180 times more PFAS than previously,” said Zhang.“
Perhaps pollution loading is the reason HPAI H5N1 bird flu has been so deadly to birds and now mammals, which signals potential reasons why humans are becoming so much more disease-ridden as these chemicals, compounds, and toxins add up in our bodies. This is of huge concern because of the implications it has regarding those who think regenerative agriculture or permaculture will build resilience and rebuild the soil. Rebuilding the soil is a lovely idea, and it seems relatively easy to add nutrients to it through mulching and other soil amendments. But how does one rid the soil of microplastics, PFAS, PFOS, dioxins, salts, and a thousand other chemicals/chemical compounds? All of these pollutants are steadily increasing and doing so rather rapidly now due to increased wildfires, winds, extreme weather events, and extreme rain/flooding events.
To end this article, I present yet another excellent article from Dave Pollard summarizing the backdrop and leadup to the fiascoes unfolding currently in the U.S. but also many other nations as well. The bottom line is that reality is a cruel master, and many of the illusions we chose to believe in didn’t actually exist in the first place. Still, just like the monkeys fighting in the power station in Sri Lanka causing a nation-wide blackout, the same scenario is unfolding in the U.S., quote:
“And for all of that, these massive, staggeringly complex, bureaucratic systems are so easy to break! All it takes is a few monkeys!
Maybe, as we watch our exhausted, fraudulent, incompetently-‘led’ civilization falling apart all around us, we can finally open our eyes and see that it never has been what we believed it was, with all our smarmy talk of “freedom” and “democracy”. It’s been a sham from the start, but we believed the nonsense we’ve been told about it because we wanted to believe it. Take away everything we have, but you’ll never take away our belief in our human superiority, our manifest destiny, the myth of perpetual progress as we spread across the universe, and, most of all, our certainty that we will be saved.
So we have DOGE, perhaps the most blatantly, overtly incompetent gang of monkeys the world has ever seen, let loose in the ‘power factory’ by the Child King, the most incompetent business person in the history of civilization, wreaking havoc on every essential public service in the US.
And we have the incompetent, miseducated, sci-fi dreamer technophiles, with their wild untested ideas for Marvel Comics-style rescues of our ecosystems, let loose to play at geoengineering, sucking up billions from the dregs of the world’s fast-failing treasuries to play at making fusion energy, and carbon capture, and AI everything, and quantum everything, and starships to anywhere-but-this-fucked-planet, and carbon (and now water) cap-and-trade offset exchanges (for those that flunked science). Gotta be some salvation in there somewhere! It’s ordained!”
Watching this unfold is quite sickening, only buffered by the fact that most of us in the overshoot community knew that collapse would come sooner or later. I just think that most of us had wished that we might eke out a few more years first.
Thank goodness for some beautiful pictures at Manistee, Michigan to distract one away from all of this for a bit!
