IS MINING A WASTE – ADDICTED TO MINING Is mining a waste of resources, a waste of our living and farming land, are we simply addicted to mining simply for mining sake, simply to make huge profits for greedy corporations? Approximately 5,500 years ago man discovered the use of metals and began mining copper and tin to make bronze, a semi-hard metal, to make tools and other useful implements, as well as decorative items. Approximately 3,000 years ago the Bronze age collapsed, when a harder metal was discovered and the iron age began, the mining of Copper and Tin took a back seat to the new mineral Iron Ore, which has been mined ever since. Its use only became widespread in the 14th century, when smelting furnaces (the forerunner of blast furnaces) began to replace forges, since then the consumption and mining of iron ore began to ramp up. There do not seem to be any accurate records of the quantity of Iron Ore mined, but an estimate of global production would be in excess of a billion tonnes a year. Obviously the quantity of iron ore mined would have started off much slower and elevated to this level over time. To give this figure some sort of relevance a billion tonnes is 1,000,000,000 tonnes; the largest ship ever made was the “Seawise Giant” an oil tanker of 458.46 metres long with a dead weight of 564,650 tonnes. The largest cruise liners ever made are “Allure of the Seas” and “Oasis of the Seas” both 362 metres long with a gross weight of 225,282 tonnes. All three of these ships could be made from the steel mined in one year 985 times and the weight of these ships includes the non-iron weight also. Where is all the iron ore going, yes China is expanding and we make billions of cars each year, but can we be using all this production of iron each year and then consider the fact we have been mining iron ore for approximately 3,000 years, that is an unimaginable quantity of iron and steel. What happens to all the scrap metal, the oil tanker “Seawise Giant” has been broken up, scrapped and each of those cars manufactured each year is expected to replace a car that was made in the past, the process is a bit slower than the automobile manufacturers would like, but it does eventually happen. In the build-up to the second world war the Japanese bought as much scrap metal as they could to construct the Japanese war machine that took on the might of the United States and conquered all of South Asia, with the exception of Australia, whose northern shores were bombed and the Sydney Ferry was sunk, a mighty feat for a scrap metal military force. When Japan took on the global car market, they again turned to scrap metal to build their export vehicle products; they now lead the global car market. Very few other nations use scrap metal, even Japan now uses new steel for production and construction; so what is happening to all that iron and steel? It sits in scrap yards and farm yards rusting away, it forms the skeleton of derelict buildings, that no longer have a use and are too far decayed to reclaim, and all those planes sitting in the American “Bone Yard” and other plane scrap yards, scrap metal has become a victim of the “Throw Away Society” that we have become, it has been discarded in want of new. Instead of mining our countryside, denigrating the productive farm land, we should be mining our cities, reusing the steel skeleton of our buildings, grinding up the cement to save coral reefs from mining, reusing the bricks or grinding them down to make new bricks, instead of removing more clay from the earth. Around the world there are warehouses full of bales of plastic bottles, compressed blocks of aluminium cans, awaiting the demand for re-use. Bins full of glass and mountains of paper and cardboard awaiting the call for re-use; in Africa, mountains of old computer cases are being sorted and graded awaiting the day the call comes for their re-use. A process was developed for super heating old circuit boards, until they become vapour and then allowing them to cool in a tower similar to the refining process for petroleum. The various metals reform to a liquid and then a solid at varying levels, allowing for the collection of pure metals at various levels, gold, platinum and lead, at lower levels aluminium and lighter metals at higher levels. As the plastics involved in circuit boards would be considered a waste product in this process, but it should be possible to reclaim them in similar processes. There is nothing that can not be reclaimed, recycled and re-used, except perhaps my youth, but then again I am not sure I want to reclaim my youth, so why are we still digging up the earth for new minerals? With over 3,000 years of iron ore mining and at least 5,000 years of mining for other minerals, surely there are enough metal and other minerals on the surface of this planet to suffice the needs of all her inhabitants many times over. We have been educated through advertising in the various strands of the media, that new is best and we all deserve the best, and we do deserve the best. How many of you have bought a new item to find you have bought the “Lemon” the car finished on Friday afternoon that becomes nothing but trouble; is that the best you deserve? Is new always the best, what about “Old Wine” or “Aged Cheese” and what about that old coat you have in the wardrobe that you just can’t bring yourself to replace, you still wear it everywhere. Would a new pair of shoes fit you as well as that old favourite pair you still wear, is new really the best? And what about that priceless old painting you inherited from you favourite uncle, wouldn’t a new painting be best for you? At one time, we took those old shoes to the cobbler for repairs, the wireless um ah radio and television was far cheaper to repair than replace; even toasters and electric jugs could be repaired by replacing the elements. But not anymore, throw it away and buy a new one, don’t worry about where it goes when you have finished with it and don’t worry about where the materials came from to make the new one, after all it’s not your world; or, is it? Nauru, an island in the Micronesia group in the south western pacific, was once a lush paradise, with as many as twelve tribes of people. Birds stopped there on the migration from south to north and back again, this made the island rich in phosphate, a crucial ingredient in the manufacture of fertiliser. Such was the demand for phosphate; the island was strip mined, leaving it resembling the head of a balding man, bare on top, with just a fringe of growth around the coast. Barely 600 inhabitants remain of the once twelve tribes (full population 9,945 in 2011) and recently these people were on the lookout for a neighbouring island they could purchase to enable them to live. This is the result of uncontrolled mining, an article well worth reading from the “Economist” is Nauru - Paradise well and truly lost. economist/node/884045 This process of open cut, strip mining, is now widespread, it is quicker and cheaper, as it employs less people, but leaves an open scar on the landscape and creates far more pollution contaminating the atmosphere. Not in your backyard, I hear you say, well where does all that dust come from that settles on your furniture and how do your windows get so dirty and why do you need to wash your car every week. Just urban grime, it wasn’t that bad in my parent’s day, the dust and pollution is blowing into suburbia from every open cut strip mine around the world, circling the globe on the trade winds settling when and where the winds drop sufficiently to allow the dust to settle, at, your, home! So yes in your backyard, every open cut strip mine is potentially in your backyard; the effect is the same and the truth is WE DON’T NEED THEM; we have sufficient minerals on the surface of the earth to supply all the world’s needs, we just need to move them to where they are needed and share them around. High-rises are not an efficient use of our resources, they require massive amounts of energy to maintain them and they act as heat sinks, drawing heat into the earth, making the earth hotter, so we need more energy to cool our homes and power the high-rises. We are being forced to become addicted to mining, and who owns these high-rises; the same corporations that own and operate the mines. And who owns these mining corporations and other Corporations, well they say it is the shareholders and who are these shareholders? Not you or I; Oh yes, small investors own some of the corporations shares, but the majority of the shares in corporations, are owned by the corporations investing in other corporations, producing a network of ownership, that is not responsible to any particular person or group of people, as no individual investor can afford to compete with the share holdings of the corporations. The corporations have become a monster, rampaging out of control, destroying all that lay before them, with nothing or nobody to bring it to heel, moving on destroying all before it, until there is nothing left to consume, nothing left of our world for us to shelter or feed our starving people. Why are we defining our national prosperity by the stock market? This does not reflect our standard of living, only the wealth and power of the corporations. The only hope for our survival is to take our governments out of the hands of the corporations, to remind them, that governments are the servants of the people and return the government to the control of the people, because only governments have the power to rein in the corporations. Corporations operating as a cabal form monopolies, and monopolies around the world are illegal, unless they are government monopolies and then they are only a monopoly in one nation; these corporations are GLOBAL MONOPOLIES serving nobody but themselves. To bring these corporations to heel and break them up, so they can never wield the power of global monopolies again and threaten the existence of the people of the world, as they do now; starting wars to feed their demand for their products; destroying people’s lives, destroying peoples countries, forcing the people to become refugees, so the corporations can increase their profits. RETURN BUSINESS TO THE PEOPLE not the corporations, RETURN GOVERNMENT TO THE PEOPLE take them out of the hands of the corporations. GOVERNMENTS ARE NOT COMPANIES, they do not make a profit, they serve the people, providing for their needs and the people’s needs are food, shelter, clothing, water to drink; NOT HOLES IN THE GROUND, but forests and fields. Mining has passed its use by date, it no longer serves the needs of the people, we have more than we can use. We can re-use what we have to serve our needs, without digging up more and creating more pollution and misery, destroying farm land and forests alike; WE NEED INDIVIDUALS NOT CORPORATIONS.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Sep 2013 05:57:51 +0000
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