An ounce of prevention: Why is one of our best climate strategies also the most ignored?

The depths of the ocean are often talked about as though they exist on some other planet. The species that live there are frequently described as “otherworldly.” Our knowledge – or lack thereof – of the ocean floor is compared with our level of understanding of other planets in our solar system. And, as demonstrated recently by the discovery of evidence that nodules on the ocean floor may be producing oxygen through a process previously unknown to science, the discoveries left to be made there may be just as profound. 

Today, one of the most remote areas of seabed on earth – the floor of the central Pacific Ocean – is being targeted by mining companies hoping to extract copper, manganese, cobalt, nickel and other minerals, ostensibly to enable the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

Our new report “We Don’t Need Deep-Sea Mining” documents why that’s both unwise and unnecessary. But what is unique about our report (as far as I’m aware, anyway) is that it contrasts the drive to extract so-called “critical minerals” – materials so valuable, it is argued, that we must jeopardize fragile deep-ocean ecosystems to obtain them – with how we currently treat those same minerals in our everyday lives. Which is often as trash in waiting. 

Smartphones, e-cigarettes, laptops and other electronics all contain minerals considered “critical” for the energy transition, and yet all are frequently disposed of as e-waste after lifespans ranging from a few years to just a few days. The world currently throws away more of some of these minerals as e-waste each year than we are likely to produce annually from deep-sea mining in the central Pacific, at least within the next decade. That’s the time frame during which, if we play our cards right, we can achieve peak demand for those minerals, reducing the pressure for future mining.

The solution to the critical minerals challenge, it turns out, does not begin at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. It begins in our pockets and in the junk drawers where e-waste piles up in our homes. It begins with turning a big problem – the need to extract and process large volumes of minerals for electric vehicles and other clean energy technologies – into a smaller one by getting the most possible use out of the critical minerals we extract from the Earth. 

Preventing problems from emerging in the first place – or reducing their size and scope – is among the most potent and beneficial approaches we can take to combat climate change. Yet, in the world of climate policy-making, prevention often sits forlornly in the corner as other strategies take the spotlight.

Why?

Kitchen counter environmentalism

Before we try to answer that question, let’s look at another example from our recent work: the problem of food waste. Wasted food dumped into landfills or burned in incinerators creates greenhouse gases, as does the process of growing food that no one will ever eat. According to one estimate, about 6 to 8% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions globally could be eliminated if we simply stopped wasting food.

In my home state of Massachusetts, as we document in another recent report, we are dealing with the food waste problem, in large part, by sending more of our food waste away to anaerobic digesters that convert that waste into methane gas that can be burned for energy. Creating biogas from food waste is far better than sending the food waste to a landfill (though it’s not without its issues). But it is not nearly as beneficial as preventing food waste at the source. 

According to an EPA study, “source reduction had order-of-magnitude greater [greenhouse gas] benefits than any other pathway” for addressing food waste. The study estimates that sending a metric ton of food waste to an anaerobic digester reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 110 kilograms (carbon dioxide equivalent), but reducing a metric ton of food waste at the source cuts emissions by a whopping 3,330 kilograms, with additional benefits for land use, water use and other environmental metrics. 

In other words, every ton of food waste avoided at the source is worth 30 times as much as a ton of food waste sent to anaerobic digestion; and likely more if other environmental benefits are factored in. Yet, while Massachusetts has spent many millions of dollars subsidizing the construction and operation of anaerobic digesters, it has done comparatively little to help residents reduce food waste in their homes. That’s despite proven campaigns from around the country that have made a measurable difference with relatively little upfront investment. Even common-sense measures such as standardizing food date labels to reduce the amount of perfectly good food people throw in the trash have failed to move through the state legislature.

Again, this is far from the only example. We have known for decades that making our homes and the appliances and equipment we use every day more energy efficient – and being conscientious about how we use energy – can reduce emissions, save money and lessen strain on the grid. A 2021 study by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated that the past and future benefits of federal energy and water conservation standards adopted since 1987 amount to more than 10 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases averted (about a year-and-a-half’s worth of U.S. economy-wide emissions), 50 trillion gallons of water saved and economic benefits of more than $2 trillion. Yet, spending on utility energy efficiency programs is decreasing, not increasing, even as concerns about booming demand for electricity for computing, vehicles and space heating grow, leading some utilities to delay the retirement of polluting fossil fuel-fired power plants that are warming the climate.

Taking prevention seriously

So why do strategies like scraping rocks off the floor of the Pacific Ocean or sending food waste “away” to a supposedly kinder, gentler disposal facility attract the attention of government officials and money from investors, while preventive measures such as extending the lifespans of smartphones or using food more efficiently are considered by some to be unserious? 

A few theories: 

• Using things longer or reducing their use may make environmental sense, but it doesn’t boost the profits of a specific industry or create new jobs. Indeed, by reducing the number of things that need to be produced in the first place (and the amount of waste that needs to be cleaned up at the end of the line), they often do the opposite. 
• Extending product lifespans, changing one’s food-buying habits, or conserving energy smack of “hairshirt environmentalism” – the idea that the response to climate change needs to be rooted in self-sacrifice. Yet, many of the “sacrifices” required to make preventive strategies work are pretty minor – is it really too much to ask to get an extra six months or a year out of a smartphone, especially if it can be designed to be repaired if it breaks? Considering the amount of time, creative energy and money spent on advertising to convince us – in ever more intimate and intrusive ways – to keep buying new stuff, some of us might even welcome the opportunity to give our “buy now” fingers and bank accounts a break. (The kids on TikTok leaning into “Underconsumption Core” sure seem to think so.)
• Distributed solutions aimed at prevention can feel like they can’t achieve the necessary scale to address the problem. While that’s a legitimate fear, our long experience with energy efficiency – where a combination of standards, financial incentives and public education have delivered huge, society-changing reductions in energy use – suggests that hitting the necessary scale is achievable if we’re smart about it. 
• Historically, we’ve tended to address environmental dilemmas or problems by pushing the impacts “away” to some more remote location. Why deal with problems at home through considerate use of resources when we can just tap the next “frontier”? Deep-sea mining is perhaps the ultimate example of this, the justification for it being – largely – that the impacts of critical minerals extraction would be farther away from humans; out of sight and, perhaps, out of mind. Of course, we’ve learned throughout history that there is no such thing as “away” – that the impacts of environmentally destructive actions taken in one part of the globe have a funny way of coming back to haunt us (not to mention being unacceptably damaging in their own right).

Encouraging real innovation 

To be sure, rebuilding our economy to reduce environmental problems at the source is not necessarily easy. While there are excellent models of effective conservation campaigns and proven strategies to improve the efficiency with which we use energy and materials, achieving change at the scale needed will require resources, innovation and experimentation. 

For all the seeming technological whiz-bangery of sending underwater vehicles thousands of feet deep in the ocean to dredge up critical minerals, the concept of finding an untouched resource and exploiting it for all its worth is not particularly innovative or new. It’s just an extension of the old approach to the economy and the environment that is at the root of most of our current ecological messes. Real innovation – the kind that is capable of addressing our 21st century challenges – involves, largely, finding ways to make, use, repair and recycle products that minimize the need for new extraction. The emerging clean energy economy expands the possibilities for that kind of innovation – replacing the one-way system of extracting and burning fossil fuels with one that uses recyclable materials to harness the forces of nature to meet human needs. 

We can get off the destructive infinite extraction treadmill, but only if strategies aimed at preventing environmental problems come to be taken as seriously as those that mitigate environmental problems – or that create entire new industries to manage our society’s waste. The severity of the climate crisis and other environmental challenges suggest that all of those strategies – prevention, mitigation and waste management – will need to be part of our toolbox. But by giving prevention its proper due, we can shift the conversation away from debating which  “away” is least damaging to exploit and toward taking advantage of the powerful climate change solutions at our fingertips – solutions that are currently often hiding in plain sight.