There aren't enough hours in the day for me to keep track of the war on the environment being waged by the capitalists of the world. It makes dollars, but it doesn't make cents (sense)...
^ but plenty of time to drop propaganda bombs on forums for the cause. PC has a higher level of professionalism. Thanks for coming.
It worrys me that the facts you 'have' would take 'hours in a day' to find. You seem to have a problem with capitalism. It strikes me as the only workable system not irequiring slavery or serfdom.
Well we are in a mixed economy and I think we would do better if it was more capitalist. So onto the pebble mine. I totally support mining in the united states. Some environmental groups seem to only like saying no, but if we are going to use stuff from the ground we should be free to dig it up. Unfortunately pebble mine has low grade ore, but lots of it, so it will end up being an open pit mine. Historically in N.A. these open pit mines have been done in environmentally damaging ways, so the owners of the mine have not paid the true economic costs, and left damage to the environment that they have not paid for or cleaned up. IMHO if the mine is done in an environmentally sensitive way, and the owners repair damage afterwards, I have no problems. I do not know the state of the plan or the risks, so I don't have a strong opinion on the issue, but there is cause for concern.
Coal and Oil "mining" return little profit. It requires massive scale to make profit. Gold on the one other hand, for the investment involved, the profit ratio is huge. Hydro-electric dams were adapted for salmon, and it worked out quite well. Now, if it were in my neck of the woods, you'd be damn sure I'd ask for full public disclosure of safety measures and environmental measures. Like getting a Green Card from Greenpeace.
It is one reason I am not unbiased, I have only ever seen responsible mining, so I have little appreciation of any other sort. I am certainly dismissive of those who do not think it can not be done. Sierra Club came to our site in NV in 1988 and declined to object to our operation. Their best guess was that we would remove habitat for 22 jackrabbits and 0.8 coyote.
I'm not overly wild about some of the techniques used in low grade ore gold mining, but if I had my choice, I'd rather see it done in the United States than elsewhere (example: the other side of the Bering Strait (Russian: Берингов пролив, Beringov proliv), ---what would gold mining be like there? . Here, there are at least some regulatory issues that have to be met, and these can be stiffened as necessary, which is the best thing that you can hope for. Let's face it....there's gold in them thair hills. As long as the stuff is going for over $1,500 an ounce...they (meaning the Government and private industry BTW...) aren't going to just pretend that it's really not there. So..."Stopping" the mine isn't really the issue. Regulating how we do it is. One's the noun and one's the verb. That's where some of the responsible environmentalists can get some traction on mitigating (at worst) or (ideally) actually preventing adverse impact. The good news is that gold is expensive enough to create margins that are large enough to operate this (and other) mines with enough of a margin to allow for ecological as well as economical factors to considered. As much as some people really hate the concept of Capitalism, there is at least a feedback loop in this system that allows for regulation if it's used properly. Show me a greener system that works, and I'll help advocate it for you, but my travels in countries that have tried other systems of government (or economy) haven't exactly left me with a warm fuzzy feeling about their track records for trivial little things like environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, etc... Just sayin'...
This mine will get half of its income from copper, and if you want to see irresponsible pit mining of copper in America you should go to Montana and the Superfund site cleaning up the mess from anaconda. This mining environmental disaster is currently owned by bp, but united states taxpayers paid the bulk for the cleanup. That said, the 0.8 coyote that sierra club was trying to save is equally pathetic. Pebble can be a good mine if protection and plans are put in place.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8s5AEsaY-c]YouTube - Anti Pebble Mine TV Ad- water and tailings pond‏[/ame] Protection and plans fail and the cost of a failure at the Pebble Mine is unacceptable.
Anyone can find this stuff on the web or watch the TV ads, but if you got some real insight, please post. FUD need not apply.
