From the 1950s to the 1970s, driven by Cold War geopolitical rivalry, the acceleration of technological advancements propelled spatial explorations for potential resource extraction across various vertical and horizontal dimensions. Vertically, the first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, was launched. The aftermath of spaceflight activities saw the perpetual fall of rocket debris into Earth’s alien seas and oceans, which became the drop-off and disposal zones. Concomitantly, the abyssal zone (doubling as a debris cemetery), rich in marine life forms and mineral resources, prompted exploration driven by private and state interests. In Tuesday’s Gathering: Deep Sea Minescape, we query: How can we recenter remote environments to reconfigure them less as property and more as common heritage of mankind? How are such sites enrolled in modes of management, governance and control?
Image Credit: INTERPRT, Deep Sea Mining Campaign, and Ozeanien-Dialog, Blue Peril, 2022, still from digital film, 16 min. Graphic visualisation by INTERPRT. Courtesy the authors.
Image Description: A graphic visualisation of the spread of benthic plume, a waste discharge from mining vehicles, across Hawaii, Marshall Islands and Kiribati. The visualisation shows the spread of plume in the Nauru NORI D licence area using Open Drift.
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Climate Transformation Tuesday Gatherings
Dive deeper into the topics and discussions learned from the lecture series during these gatherings where we meet to read, debate and ruminate. The aim is to expand what has been introduced, explore topics that resonate with us, what troubled and what excites us about the possibilities offered by the speakers. We seek to consolidate our learnings and transform them into actions. Access to the lecture recordings and readings are made available after registration.
The Climate Transformation: Sustainable Societies Series is organised by members of the Climate Transformation Programme (CTP) Cross-Cutting Theme 1: Sustainable Societies research team, Senior Principal Investigator Professor Ute Meta Bauer, research associate Ng Mei Jia and research assistant Angela Ricasio Hoten.
Sustainable Societies
Senior Principal Investigator, Professor Ute Meta Bauer (NTU ADM)
Principal Investigator, Associate Professor Laura Miotto (NTU ADM)
Principal Investigator, Professor Dr Thomas Schroepfer (SUTD)
This Lecture Series is supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 3 grant [MOE-MOET32022-0006] for the Climate Transformation Programme.
