HIGH TECH MANIA VS. PRISTINE ALASKA: CARESSING A FLEETING WHIM IN A BANKER´S BUBBLE

Fort Knox gold mine in Alaska. Source: geologyforinvestors.

By Gundhramns Hammer

November 16, 2014

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       "A house isn´t a home without copper".

Pebble partnership.

In general, people want "progress". But "progress" may mean different things for different people. 

However, many a times, "progress" means polluting and tearing up Mother Nature to get what people want when they want it.

Industrially speaking, this people´s wanting for "progress" brings up another delicate issue. 

People also want a clean environment. And they need it too!

In modern terms, here we have a classical example of what people want to exist vs. what people want to buy just to fill up emotional holes and ditches, i.e., unneeded consumption which eventually becomes mere waste.

This is what going on regarding gold, for example, an element used in the manufacturing of high tech gadgets (e.g., cell phones) and other economic whims (e.g., nanotechnology, biotechnology) besides putting and storing gold bullions in a bank´s vault (Video 1).

 Video 1. Gold bullion vault.

The more people demand for more high tech gadgets, the more the big corporations will go out searching for this metal.

And when they find gold or any other metal, the environment gets the biggest brunt. 

In the end, what started out looking like a straight line eventually becomes a full circle. 

When this happens, the environmental mess at the mining site sooner or later catches up and crosses with man´s timeline. 

One way or another, this usually means getting back to square one. 

Let us look at one example: Alaska.
 

High tech mania vs. Pristine Alaska

Right now, Alaska has become the target of big corporations (e.g., Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd.: The Pebble Project) for metal prospecting and mining (e.g., gold, copper, molybdenum, etc.) on a large scale (Video 2).

Video 2. Biological machines in action: Alaska gold.

Soon, many of Alaska´s beautiful pristine spots will be turned into a bunch of contaminated pits: Chemical cesspools (mine tailings) to last thousands of year.

But people are people, no matter what. They want what they want no matter what.

Today people want more and more high tech contraptions at home which require gold and other metals for their construction. 

The demand for high tech paraphernalia is ever growing and expanding.

This trend is now found in nearly all corners of the world, even in the jungles and the Arctic.

In Alaska, for example, the natives, no longer living off subsistence, fully hooked on a cash economy and on high tech gadgets and "enjoying" a "Western" lifestyle in a banker´s bubble, want jobs to pay for their home utility bills (light, phone, internet, etc.), fuel for their machines (trucks, boats, snowmobiles, motorcycles) and to get money to solve other debts typical of the modern enslavement.

In order to get to this point, people are willing to get into the Matrix pods (Fig. 1) to have their vital juices sucked.

Figure 1. Matrix pods. Source: Will´s RTF 305 Blog.

And unfortunately for most people, the environment still sits at the very end of their priorities list.

All in all, unless it affects them, people will not give a shit about what happens at any mining site around the world.

But as a whole, any heavy duty mining "development" (i.e., fucking up) means disruption and contamination of the environment.

Mining in Alaska will give humans the raw materials for their high tech manias (Fig 2) but they will also get damaged rivers and fisheries. 

Figure 2. Copper (Cu) in recreation vehicles. Source: The Pebble Partnership.

 

In a nutshell, mining is one of the industrial ways for people to get stuff to manufacture stuff and also to end up with a sequence of messed up toxic holes in the living fabric that supports them: The Biosphere.

Man has yet to learn two important things:

• Not to fuck up his own nest.
• Not to eat his own toxic shit.

Let us wrap it up.

Naked apes (Homo insapiens) will always get back multiplied a million times or more the shit they throw at Mother Nature.

It is a hairy dilemma.

Faced with this dilemma, in a planet of finite resources, it is high time people now start using a measuring balance to figure out what they really need vs. what they just want to briefly possess for the sake of caressing a fleeting whim.

More so if you have kids.

Are you working on this?

See you later alligators!

Source: Jessica´s Health Blog.

References

Eisler R. (2004). Biogeochemical, Health, and Ecotoxicological Perpectives on Gold and Gold Mining. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL., USA. 336 p.

Lacerda L.D. de & Salomons W. (1998). Mercury from Gold and Silver Mining: A Chemical Time Bomb? Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, New York, NY, USA. 146 p.

Mohr F. (Ed.) (2009). Gold Chemistry: Applications and Future Directions in the Life Sciences. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. kGaA, Weinheim, Germany. 408 p.

The Pebble Partnership (2014) The Pebble Environment: A Scientific Overview of Environmental and Social Data on Southwest Alaska. www.partnership.com. 50 p.