“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

This is a quote from an unnamed American Major after the Battle of Bến Tre, 1968.

When put that way, the paradoxical tensions at play in something as complex as a war are resolved into absurdity. Destroying to save might work if you define the boundaries of the problem narrowly, but look wider and you see the you are undermining your very cause. Indeed, this statement became a key anti-war slogan.

Unfortunately, this is the exact thinking we see around us today when people use the 'energy transition' as an excuse to dig into the global commons with no thought for the other living beings that will be killed, or even the impact such disruption could eventually have on humans. Deepsea mining.¹ Mining under rainforests. It's not a necessary trade-off so we can live off renewable energy². It's a cash-grab and a planetary scale experiment carried out by people with no wisdom.

To be clear, I believe some mining is needed while we move to sustainable human development, but it's not something that can be expanded forever, and not something that should be expanded into pristine environments, because then we are destroying them to save them from climate change.

Our planet's ecosystems are interconnected and the world is complex enough that we have no idea how our actions could manifest into something disastrous. Maybe they won't, but it's a non-zero probability that they will. If we want human civilisation to continue long term, we need to live within our means, to live off the interest Earth provides, rather than draw down the principal. Otherwise, we are destroying the only known system of life in the universe because we've grown accustomed to the convenience of always-there electricity.

As for deep sea mining, in particular, how much better would the world be with the ocean as a sovereign nation?

For boards and executives, the lesson is the same: don’t solve one risk by creating another that could be far worse. Choices made in pursuit of the “energy transition” ripple across ecosystems, supply chains and future generations. Resilience comes not from short‑term fixes but from respecting systemic limits.

At Danu Consulting, we help boards and executives stress‑test their strategies against these systemic risks, so they can make better‑informed decisions without falling into “destroy the town to save it” logic. If this resonates, I’d welcome a conversation.

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¹ Some say deep sea mining is less damaging than terrestrial mining, but if you think we'd stop terrestrial mining in favour of the ocean, I've got a bridge to sell you.

² Renewables aren't displacing fossil fuels, they are additional, driving overshoot, our fundamental problem.

Image credit: NOAA