Can late capitalism innovate away from environmentally harmful extraction and meet its profit demands while meeting global net-zero goals.
Or will it be necessary to adopt regimes of ecosocialism that enforce degrowth policies, that minimize market-based development policies, and that can accelerate innovative processes and technology.
Hughes Glomar Explorer. The mining company and ship were nominally owned by reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, but secretly backed by the CIA, who paid for the construction of the Hughes Glomar Explorer.[5] The ship recovered a portion of K-129, but a mechanical failure in the grapple caused two-thirds of the recovered section to break off during recovery.[6][7]
Trump thinks bitcoin is like clean coal, but like the Glomar Explorer affair that nearly recovered a complete soviet submarine, there’s far more below the ocean surface.
Digital data mining and the associated bitcoin dredging do not resemble actual resource extraction, but their environmental effects may ultimately contribute to a climate crisis that is already trying to move the net-zero timelines past 2030 and the temperature threshold from 2o to 3o C.
Map and territory converge as the need for ecosocialist policy planning for carbon remediation where an endless cycle of carbon sequestration does not promise the kind of speed necessary to prevent a climate crisis.
Cryptocurrency mining requires excessive amounts of electricity in creating currency that produces a variant of fictitious capital less dependent on location whereas marine mining is more capital-intensive than terrestrial mining. Firms with ocean oil drilling platforms see seafloor mining as a complementary source of commodities. The advantage is that land as seafloor has fewer rights issues.
Strip-mining the sea floor is a logical capitalist goal with open-ended assumptions of exploration rights. However, like Project Azarian’s cover story of mining for manganese nodules, there will be actual planet warming consequences at an ever-increasing scale.
Ultimately it is about financing such projects and the necessity of state power for implementing what is becoming more urgent degrowth applications. It’s still all about capital, even if mining digital ‘coinage’ is a diametric opposite of the extraction of rare earth metals.
The leading company in cryptocurrency mining now boasts a market capitalization exceeding $5 billion, surpassing that of many companies in the traditional materials mining sector.
Developing more information about cryptocurrency mining in the United States and its effects on electricity demand is important to provide context for energy policymakers, energy planners, and the general public. However, assessing the electricity use of cryptocurrency miners is difficult for several reasons. First, cryptocurrency mining can be performed with facilities of many sizes, ranging from individual workstations to massive data centers, which makes identifying them among the millions of end-use customers in the United States difficult. Second, identifying and tracking cryptocurrency mining facilities is made more difficult by the propensity of these operations to move in search of lower cost electricity. Third, when a cryptocurrency mining operation is identified, information on its power draw and operations is often unavailable or unclearly specified. Varied facility sizes, a paucity of data on operations, and shifts in facility location and ownership add complexity to the creation of a statistically representative sample of cryptocurrency miners.
www.eia.gov/…
Technological innovation, paid or unpaid, should be prized above any valorizing processes even if the recovery and recycling industry might not be sufficient to meet ecological goals. Ultimately, corruption will prevail if the current political situation continues.
While humans are capable of decimating ecosystems, we’re equally capable of safeguarding them by implementing restorative and protective measures. But there is another option, too: innovating away from environmentally harmful extraction. One alternative to deep-sea mining might be urban mining—recovering and recycling minerals from our built environment. Innovation isn’t just technology, after all. Sometimes, it’s the creativity to reimagine how things get done.
Even in more accessible marine environments, scientists have struggled to understand how ecosystems function. In parts of the once-bountiful Oslofjord, more than 80 percent of the cod are gone, thanks to overfishing and modern pollutants. Marine experts long thought ocean fish would repopulate the fjord, but recent research suggests uniquely adapted fjord fish are effectively irreplaceable. Other species have fared worse. Today, much of the Oslofjord remains nearly lifeless.
Farther north, fishers along Norway’s coasts noticed unusually large sea urchin populations starting in 1970. The grazing echinoderms devoured kelp forests, and other marine life disappeared with the kelp habitat. Only recently have researchers learned the cause: as technology increased catches and fishers targeted more species, the urchins lost their natural predators. The kelp is slowly growing back today.
One reason for these past collapses was a pervasive belief that fish were so abundant they couldn’t be exterminated—and therefore fishing didn’t need to be regulated. Ocean science, tracing causes of collapse and possible paths to restoration, was key to recovery. Herring made a comeback in under two decades through a fishing moratorium. Urchin harvesting might return kelp forests to the country’s north and central coasts. Even the decimated Oslofjord may stand a chance, with new fisheries management.
The relatively fast recovery of life in shallower seas has been a saving grace. But the consequences of deep-sea mining could last far longer than those of overfishing, given the slow pace of the ecosystems’ regrowth. Species that die at that depth might take centuries to regenerate, according to Kutti. For some, regeneration may not even be possible.
www.zocalopublicsquare.org/...
With #Bitcoin, you are the map AND the territory." -
@JeffBooth
The leading company in cryptocurrency mining now boasts a market capitalization exceeding $5 billion, surpassing that of many companies in the traditional materials mining sector.
Bitcoin (BTC) mining is a digital process that validates transactions and prevents double-spending by adding new Bitcoins to the network. It involves thousands of computers solving complex mathematical problems by using sophisticated hardware and software to verify and make transactions immutable in the Bitcoin blockchain, a virtual ledger in which every operation is stored.
bitcoin laws do not exist in some states
The rest is trumpian corruption.
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President Donald Trump and his allies have raked in nearly $900,000 in trading fees over the past two days from the president’s $TRUMP cryptocurrency token, according to Chainalysis, a blockchain data company.
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— NBC News (@nbcnews.com) April 25, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Critics of Trump’s cryptocurrency have flagged the investment as a novel way to circumnavigate Federal Election Commission contribution limits, which prevent individuals from donating more than $3,500 per election to their candidate of choice.
Trump has tried to position himself as a pro-crypto president. At a Bitcoin Conference in Nashville in July, Trump promised to build out a “strategic national bitcoin reserve” if elected, according to CoinDesk.
But others have derided the memecoin as little more than another money-grabbing grift. Trump’s long list of election-year hustles included launching a remarkably ugly sneaker and a limited-edition, $60 God Bless the USA Bible co-promoted by “God Bless the USA” singer Lee Greenwood. Trump also took the parent company of his social media platform Truth Social public and stamped his name on a new cryptocurrency platform headed by his two sons, Eric and Don Jr., which even the president’s allies have criticized as a “huge mistake.”
newrepublic.com/...
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DWF Labs has joined Justin Sun in purchasing tens of millions in WLFI tokens from the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial project. DWF Labs was previously accused in a Wall Street Journal report of engaging in massive market manipulation.
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— Molly White (@molly.wiki) April 24, 2025 at 7:53 PM
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Trump receives 75% of protocol revenues and owns a 60% stake in the World Liberty Financial crypto business. This has already netted him almost a $400 million claim on token sale revenue, even though no platform has been launched yet.
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— Molly White (@molly.wiki) April 17, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Newly published book
free digital copy available
Communism The Highest stage of Ecology Translated into English for the first time, with a foreword and scholarly contextualization by Henry Hakamäki and Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro, this book is an essential contribution for scholars, activists, and all those seeking a radical path toward ecological and social liberation.
Communism, The Highest Stage of Ecology makes a bold intervention in contemporary environmental debates, refuting the myth that socialism and ecological responsibility are at odds. Instead, Guillaume Suing argues that planned economies—unlike capitalist market systems—offer the necessary framework for sustainable resource management, food sovereignty, and scientific agricultural advancements.
Drawing on historical case studies from the Soviet Union and Cuba, Suing explores the successes and contradictions of socialist environmental policies, from agroecology to energy planning. He critically engages with ecosocialist currents and exposes the limitations of “green capitalism,” ultimately reaffirming the centrality of dialectical materialism in understanding and confronting the climate crisis.
