There is something many people rarely hear about in environmental debates: what actually lies on the seabed.
The CO2 debate
Public debate about the environment is often dominated by carbon dioxide and climate change. CO2 is frequently presented as the central environmental challenge of our time.
However, Earth’s climate has changed for billions of years. Geological records show that both temperature and atmospheric composition have varied repeatedly long before the modern industrial era.
Ice ages have come and gone, even in the polar regions. Periods of warming and cooling have occurred throughout history, including centuries when human industry and modern transportation simply did not exist.
Franch Hagerup
Mercury and mustard gas
While much attention is directed toward atmospheric gases, far less attention is given to something far more tangible: hazardous materials lying on the ocean floor.
Radioactive waste was dumped in northern Russian seas during the Soviet period. Norwegian authorities have described about 17,000 containers of solid radioactive waste around Novaya Zemlya, alongside dumped reactors and other nuclear objects. Their condition and potential releases require monitoring.
After World War II, vessels loaded with chemical and conventional ammunition were deliberately sunk in the Skagerrak. The Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) reports an estimated 130,000–160,000 tonnes of chemical ammunition, measured as gross weight, in the area it describes. That is not the same as the weight of the chemical agents themselves.
Fishermen still occasionally encounter these environmental hazards in their gear. The concern is understandable.
Off Fedje lies the wreck of the German submarine U-864, sunk in 1945 at about 150 metres depth. This is a wartime wreck, not industrial dumping in the shoreline. Historical information indicates a possible original cargo of approximately 67 tonnes of mercury; that estimate should not be presented as a measured quantity remaining today.
Several fishermen in these regions have reportedly been injured after mustard gas residues came into contact with their fishing equipment.
In my view, these seabed hazards deserve much more political attention. Offshore expertise is relevant, but intervention is not automatically simple or safer than leaving a wreck in place. Kystverket’s 2026 assessment of U-864 says recovering the cargo would carry a greater risk of spreading mercury during the operation and would cost more than covering the wreck.
Where are the environmental activists?
The political and media focus on CO2 has created a massive policy and taxation framework across much of the Western world. Environmental fees and climate-related taxes generate large streams of revenue for governments.
But a question remains: where is the same level of attention when it comes to the environmental hazards already resting on the seabed?
If corroding containers, ships or chemical weapons begin to break apart, the consequences could directly affect marine ecosystems and food resources taken from the sea.
A challenge to environmental organizations
I believe potential contamination of fish, shellfish and marine ecosystems should rank much higher among our environmental priorities.
These resources provide some of the most important nutrients humans rely on.
Organizations that have played visible roles in environmental debates may therefore face an important question: should more attention be directed toward the environmental threats already lying beneath the ocean surface?
Mercury, chemical weapons and radioactive materials are not theoretical problems. They are physical substances resting on the seabed, slowly aging in a harsh marine environment.
And sooner or later, the ocean will force the world to deal with them.
Editorial fact clarification
The author’s criticism concerns environmental priorities. Historical natural climate variations do not show that today’s warming is harmless or entirely natural. The IPCC concludes that human activity, principally greenhouse-gas emissions, has caused global warming. Risks from climate change and toxic material on the seabed both need to be assessed.
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