In the Torres Strait, between Australia and Papua New Guinea, lies Bramble Cay—a small, low-lying sandy island once home to a chubby-cheeked, brown rat found nowhere else in the world called the Bramble Cay melomys.
Slashing humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels will require billions of kilograms of metal: a single wind turbine can contain more than a metric ton of copper, and electric car batteries demand heaps of cobalt, nickel and manganese.
Ten years ago, the Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico killed eleven men and resulted in the largest accidental oil spill in history. Years of investigations concluded that the drilling crew missed critical warning signals that would have stopped the problem.