Assignment: Mining the Pacific – future proofing or fool’s gold?

作业:太平洋采矿——面向未来还是愚人金?

The Documentary Podcast

社会与文化

2024-12-10

26 分钟
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Climate change is intensifying, sea levels are rising and the very existence of low-lying Pacific Islands is under threat. The Cook Islands, though, has a plan to assure their peoples’ future. Enter deep sea mining, harvesting metallic nodules on the bottom of the sea floor for use in things like electric car batteries and mobile phones. Its supporters say it’s a climate change ‘solution’- a better alternative to mining on land. And one that could make Cook Islanders very rich indeed. Its detractors worry we’re messing with its Moana - or ocean – with no real idea of the impacts. Katy Watson travels to Rarotonga to find out how islanders feel about searching for ‘gold’ on the sea floor.
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  • This week on Witness History.

  • On 17 December 2014, United States President Barack Obama and the leader of Cuba, Raul Castro announced the normalization of their country's relations, ending 54 years of hostility.

  • It was a shock to most except a few trusted aides who had worked for 18 months to make it happen.

  • Raul Castro's son Alejandro was the Cuban representative while Ben Rhodes, Obama's speechwriter, was sent by the U.S.

  • he says the U.S.

  • government made a liar out of him after President Trump reversed much of the progress to get the behind the scenes story of the Cuban Thor.

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  • Kilometer.

  • Kilometer per hour welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

  • I'm Katie Watson.

  • This week on assignment in the Cook Islands, we're taking a deep dive into the Pacific Ocean.

  • More than 4,000 meters deep, in fact, to the bottom of the sea floor.

  • I'm on Rarotonga, the largest of 15 islands that make up this Pacific nation.

  • I'm standing near the shallow waters of the reef that form a ring around the island.

  • This calm lagoon is where the blue Pacific becomes a bright turquoise.

  • Cook Islanders live and breathe this ocean.

  • They proudly call it the Moana.

  • But as with many Pacific island nations, these shores are threatened by the ocean too.