What can you say about the topic of Mining?

[John Iverson]

I'm really curious in this topic because I've been watching  Philippine presidential interviews and they were asked if our presidential candidates agree to mining. Then there's another content I watched from a lawyer where he said there's no such thing as sustainable mining, so is there any such thing as sustainable or responsible mining? What can you say about the mining industry? Are you pro-mining if you're running for President of the United States? The issue here is the environment and the surrounding localities living there, but it is also a resource we can generate into something useful for the country.

Edited February 1, 2022 by John Iverson

[Yarco]

By definition, anything we mine is a non-renewable resource. It takes millions of years to produce metals, gems, oil, etc in the earth. It's not like trees where we can replant and grow another 100-ft tree in a lifetime. So it can't be sustainable in the sense that it can replenish itself.

As far as being responsible, I think it's a case of what kind of mining you're doing. If you've got a cave full of guys with pickaxes or electric drills or high-pressure water manually breaking rock, the environmental damage is pretty minimal. Using big gas-powered machines is worse. When you start using explosives or chemicals then things get really bad. Most mining today uses sulfuric acid, mercury, cyanide, lead, etc. which can leech into the groundwater and affect people nearby. Actually refining ore and things is even worse and uses a ton of energy. 

People are slow and expensive so except in extremely poor countries, you won't see people mining by hand with a pickaxe any more. Maybe if you're an individual with your own staked plot of land, but not corporations.

From a stage orange perspective, the benefit to a nation or large corporation of extracting natural resources is worth far more than the human life it costs to obtain it right now. Even after paying off lawsuits of all your workers who get black lung from working in mines, and all the families that can prove your actions caused the city nearby to have 10x the normal cancer rate, you will still come out way ahead in terms of money.

[Danioover9000]

@Yarco

2 minutes ago, Yarco said:

By definition, anything we mine is a non-renewable resource. It takes millions of years to produce metals, gems, oil, etc in the earth. It's not like trees where we can replant and grow another 100-ft tree in a lifetime. So it can't be sustainable in the sense that it can replenish itself.

As far as being responsible, I think it's a case of what kind of mining you're doing. If you've got a cave full of guys with pickaxes or electric drills or high-pressure water manually breaking rock, the environmental damage is pretty minimal. Using big gas-powered machines is worse. When you start using explosives or chemicals then things get really bad. Most mining today uses sulfuric acid, mercury, cyanide, lead, etc. which can leech into the groundwater and affect people nearby. Actually refining ore and things is even worse and uses a ton of energy. 

People are slow and expensive so except in extremely poor countries, you won't see people mining by hand with a pickaxe any more. Maybe if you're an individual with your own staked plot of land, but not corporations.

From a stage orange perspective, the benefit to a nation or large corporation of extracting natural resources is worth far more than the human life it costs to obtain it right now. Even after paying off lawsuits of all your workers who get black lung from working in mines, and all the families that can prove your actions caused the city nearby to have 10x the normal cancer rate, you will still come out way ahead in terms of money.

   There's also fracking and sea floor mining as well, which also can have more negative impacts on the environment, especially sea floor mining.