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lucidlilacdream t1_j1vum12 wrote

Reply to comment by respaaaaaj in Large deposit of rare elements and minerals discovered in northern Maine by CptnAlex

I actually worked on an air quality project in Arizona (which hosts the second largest number of mines in America), and there are places that are inhabitable because they are so poisonous. The mines are no where near the major cities. The vast majority of mining towns become ghost towns once the jobs dry up, leaving behind the poorest of the community to poisoned water and air. EPA clean up of these sites is often slow to non existent due to funding and bureaucracy, and often because these are towns inhabited by people who lack any economic power. Jobs aren’t even a good argument anymore, because a lot of mining jobs have become automated.

Again, if you want an environmental disaster in an already vulnerable and poor area that will benefit rich people who don’t live there, by all means.

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respaaaaaj t1_j1vuznh wrote

So you're saying that we should only have mines in countries too poor to say no? Because that's the end point of this kind of thinking

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lucidlilacdream t1_j1vv7rk wrote

This would go in a poor area in the US. I don’t know how else to explain that to you. This isn’t going into Cumberland County, it’s going into a rural part of Aroostook county. You are not advocating for anyone here.

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respaaaaaj t1_j1w2vgm wrote

Do you think people in Aroostook county or people in Burundi will suffer more for having a mine opened around them?

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lucidlilacdream t1_j1waoep wrote

First of all, for this to even be a fair argument the materials available in Maine and Burundi would have to be exactly the same, which is unlikely.

Second, I am not advocating mining in vulnerable places overseas. There should be less mining, less consumption, and more recycling and reusing of materials rather than ripping up the land in vulnerable communities. Many of mines in the US disproportionately impact Native communities, and poorer communities. It’s not social justice to move the impact from one vulnerable community to another. Where I worked on the air quality project, the air was full of lead and arsenic next to a school. The people being poisoned were children, all of who were low income and and majority Latino. Who profits off this? A few very wealthy people.

What we should be doing is mining less, extending the life of electronics, recycling electronics, and living with less. If you are truly worried about mining overseas, which I kind of doubt you are and assume you are trolling, then advocate for more environmental and human rights protections on a global level as well as more research and methods into recycling of metals. Advocate against corporate greed and over extraction of materials.

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respaaaaaj t1_j1wd6md wrote

Reclyling and extending the life of existing materials should be done, and people should support expanding human rights and environmental protections.

But the sad reality is that those things will not take effect in time to matter for people currently suffering under the abuses of the way the global economy is currently shaped

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lucidlilacdream t1_j1wey93 wrote

and neither will mining in Maine. Mining in Maine will not stop mining overseas. They’ll just extract from both places for more profit, and harm multiple communities.

The only way to possibly stop it is to actually move to more sustainable practices and by pushing for for environmental rights for people.

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Know_more_carry_less t1_j1vzvww wrote

>So you're saying that we should only have mines in countries too poor to say no? Because that's the end point of this kind of thinking.

Strawman Logical Fallacy - “A straw man fallacy occurs when someone takes another person’s argument or point, distorts it or exaggerates it in some kind of extreme way, and then attacks the extreme distortion, as if that is really the claim the first person is making.

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