El pasado miércoles 3 de julio tuvimos una nueva sesión del TeC-FiloLab. En esta ocasión, Ed Nedelciu, investigador posdoctoral en el System Dynamics Group de la Universidad de Bergen, nos presentó un caso ilustrativo de controversia pública en la que confluyen de manera compleja cuestiones científicas, intereses económicos y exigencias ciudadanas de participación en la toma de decisiones sobre las políticas que afectan al medio ambiente: la irrupción creciente en los últimos años de propuestas de extraccción de minerales de los fondos marinos cercanos a Noruega. A continuación reproducimos el resumen de la charla y una breve nota sobre el trabajo de Nedelciu.
Abstract: Should we mine the deep sea and harvest critical minerals essential to the energy transition? Or should we pause plans for deep-sea mining until we can fully understand potential environmental impacts? Those are the main questions guiding the deep-sea mining debate now. Both questions are, however, framed within the paradigm of unquestionable economic growth, or growthism. Policymakers, industry, and many in academia have treated extraction in the deep sea as necessary and inevitable. At the same time, narratives criticizing a growth-dependent economy occupy the fringes of discourse, despite mounting evidence that growthism is an obstacle to achieving a habitable planet for all beings, both human and nonhuman.
Bio: Claudiu Eduard (Ed) Nedelciu is a postdoctoral fellow in the System Dynamics Group at the University of Bergen and part of the SEAS programme on marine sustainability. He uses systems thinking and system dynamics to look into natural resource management from a degrowth and postgrowth perspective. His current project investigates the emergence of deep-sea mining in Norway and at international level.