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In this debate over climate change the pollution human activity causes gets lost in the debate. Extractive mining is terrible for the environment and ecosystems

In this debate over climate change the pollution human activity causes gets lost in the debate. Extractive mining is terrible for the environment and ecosystems. One of the biggest reasons why I am supporter of SpaceX is that they will facilitate asteroid mining. It'd be kind of funny if Ridley-Scott retconned the origin the Weyland-Yutani Corp to make them eco-saviors for taking resource extraction completely off-world

vkou 10y ago
The energy requirements of getting things into space, and moving things in space around makes asteroid mining an unmitigated environmental disaster.
- krasin 10y ago
  Not necessarily, if at some point a space colony is sustainable and mostly sends things down the gravity well, rather than up.
  - vkou 10y ago
    Still not the case, because they need to redirect asteroids into low earth orbit/the orbit of the colony. (And then expend a ton of energy to match orbits.) The economics of asteroid mining only make sense if you're: 1. Using the mined materials for space construction. But why are you doing space construction in the first place? So you can do more asteroid mining? So you can do more space construction? 2. You've found an asteroid made of pure unobtanium.
    - ericd 10y ago
      Not unobtanium, but 90 million tons of platinum is worth a decent amount. https://www.rt.com/news/310170-platinum-asteroid-2011-uw-158/ https://www.rt.com/news/310170-platinum-asteroid-2011-uw-158...
      - sqeaky 10y ago
        I am so curious what will actually happen when someone tries to mine one of these. With they retain their mining rights and sell carefully, or will the price of platinum crash? With a government steal it and will there be wars over it?
        ericd 10y ago
        Heh yeah, interesting to ponder. I imagine that others will race off to mine other asteroids, and the price of platinum and other rare metals/minerals will plummet. Or maybe you'll get a resurgence of nation-state-level companies like the old Dutch East Indies company, as well as piracy.
    - krasin 10y ago
      >they need to redirect asteroids into low earth orbit/the orbit of the colony. (And then expend a ton of energy to match orbits.) Which basically means a sustainable colony must produce a ton of energy. Good news, producing energy in the space is actually cheaper than on Earth: you have a lot of solar, and nuclear is no longer a hazard.
    - FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
      > The economics of asteroid mining only make sense if you're: You're using linear projections. Elon Musk's entire goal with SpaceX is the Interplanetary Transit System. I also think that it will be a boon to multinational corporations who want to perform research/experiments that are either not possible, heavily regulated, or outright banned on earth. > 1. Using the mined materials for space construction. But why are you doing space construction in the first place? So you can do more asteroid mining? So you can do more space construction? Yes, exactly. Space exploration is a bit limited without construction in space. There's also the likely scenario that as the world becomes wealther, our consumption of technology will also grow. Look at the bet on AI and the huge capital investment necessary to run ML/DL projects. A combination of increased demand and an increase in global wealth which raises people's standards of living is also going to increase the cos of mining as people's environmental awareness is raised. SpaceX has a plan for the colonization of Mars, so yes, to do more space construction.
- jon_richards 10y ago
  How bad are the environmental effects other than global warming? I imagine by the time we can mine asteroids we will be able to offset huge amounts of global warming through sunshades and similar ideas.
- bbernard 10y ago
  What do you think creates more pollution between: 1. All airlines in the world. 2. All cars in the world. 3. All factories in the world. 4. All rockets in the world. Right now, I think that 1, 2 and 3 combined have much deeper consequences than 4.
  - vkou 10y ago
    What economic value do all airlines, cars, factories in the world produce? They are the reason we don't live in mud huts, poking at eachother with sharp sticks. Now, what economic value do all rockets in the world produce? Satellite TV and GPS? Satellite weather reports that we complain about, and climate studies that we ignore? And those are the low-hanging fruits. The ROI of a GPS network, a communication network, and orbital climate satellites is miles better then that of asteroid mining.
    - bbernard 10y ago
      I guess that we see things differently. On one hand, you see the economic value of airlines, cars and factories, so for you it justifies the environmental consequences that they have. Fair enough. On the other hand, you don't see the economic value of asteroid mining and of getting things into space, so you talk about the consequences that it might have on the environment. Did you know that asteroids represent an endless supply of rare metals (gold, platinum, etc.)? Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining#Purpose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining#Purpose if you don't believe me. This might represent the biggest economic opportunity of all times. And if we want to become a "multi-planetary species" as Elon Musk suggests, this will probably be essential. Now, I personally tend to be more on the environment's side. So as long as we use those metals to build things on other planets and in space, I don't see any problem. We'll need to be responsible with this.
    - FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
      > Now, what economic value do all rockets in the world produce? The development of rocket technology and the resulting space program has had the greatest effect on our modern world save pretty much produced our connected, modern world and developments from our space program probably form the bedrock of many of our most advanced industries. Have you ever been in an airplane that doesn't have GPS? Let' s just say I'd be drving, taking the train a lot more places than go back to planes using old landing technology It is simply disingenuous of you to completely dismiss and reduce the importance of GPS and Satellitle communications. Major communications networks, banking systems, financial markets and power grids depend heavily on GPS for precise time synchronization. Nearly all new military assets — from vehicles to munitions — come equipped with GPS. We're conducting whole wars by drone. If you actually do care about the economic and security importance of the satellite (It's more than just DishTV) and GPS network, here's an actual study: http://marshall.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Day-without-Space-Oct-16-2008.pdf http://marshall.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Day-without-S... Or you could just google "what would happen to us if satellites disappeared" Here are some results: “Apart from the fact that everyone has forgotten to navigate without GPS in their cars, many airplanes use GPS as well,” says McDowell. Though backup systems exist, airlines use GPS to chart the most fuel-efficient and expeditious routes. Without GPS and telecomm-sats, aircraft controllers would have tremendous difficulty communicating with and routing airplanes. Airlines would have to fall back to legacy systems and procedures. Given the sheer volume of airline traffic today, accidents would be all but guaranteed. Other affected navigation systems would include those aboard cargo vessels, supply-chain management systems, and transportation hubs driven by GPS. But GPS does more than just provide positioning — it also provides for timing. Ground-based atomic clocks can perform the same function, but GPS is increasingly being used to distribute the universal time standard via satellites. Within hours of a terminated service, any distributing networks requiring tight synchronization would start to suffer from “clock drift,” leading to serious performance issues and outright service outages. Such disruptions could affect everything from the power grid through to the financial sector. In the report, “A Day Without Space: Economic and National Security Ramifications,” Ed Morris, the Executive Director of the Office of Space Commerce at the Department of Commerce, writes: If you think it is hard to get work done when your internet connection goes out at the office, imagine losing that plus your cell phone, TV, radio, ATM access, credit cards, and possibly even your electricity. [...] Wireless services, especially those built to CDMA standard, would fail to hand off calls from one cell to the next, leading to dropped connections. Computer networks would experience slowdowns as data is pushed through finite pipelines at reduced bit rates. The same would be true for major networks for communication and entertainment, since they are all IP-based today and require ultra-precise timing to ensure digital traffic reaches its destination. The lack of effective synch would hit especially hard in banking, where the timing of transactions needs to be recorded. Credit card payments and bank accounts would likely freeze, as billions of dollars could be sucked away from businesses. A financial crash is not out of the question. The Loss of Military Capability The sudden loss of satellite capability would have a profound effect on the military. Useless without GPS: The U.S. Navy’s Harpoon missile (U.S. Navy) The Marshall Institute puts it this way: “Space is a critical enabler to all U.S. warfare domains,” including intelligence, navigation, communications, weather prediction, and warfare. McDowell describes satellite capability as as the “backbone” of the U.S. military. And as 21st century warfare expert Peter W. Singer from New America Foundation tells io9, “He who controls the heavens will control what happens in the battles of Earth.” Singer summarized the military consequences of losing satellites in an email to us: Today there are some 1,100 active satellites which act as the nervous system of not just our economy, but also our military. Everything from communications to GPS to intelligence all depend on it. Potential foes have noticed, which is why Russia and China have recently begun testing a new generation of anti-satellite weapons, which in turn has sparked the U.S. military to recently budget $5 billion for various space warfare systems. What would happen if we lost access to space? Well, the battles would, as one U.S. military officer put it, take us back to the “pre digital age.” Our drones, our missiles, even our ground units wouldn’t be able to operate the way we plan. It would force a rewrite of all our assumptions of 21st century high tech war. We might have a new generation of stealthy battleships...but the loss of space would mean naval battles would in many ways be like the game of Battleship, where the two sides would struggle to even find each other. Moreover, and as McDowell explains to io9, the loss of satellite capability would have a profound effect on arms control capabilities. Space systems can monitor compliance; without them, we’d be running blind. “The overarching consideration is that you wouldn’t really know what’s going on,” says McDowell. “Satellites provide for both global and local views of what’s happening. We would be less connected, less informed — and with considerably degraded situational awareness.” Compromised Weather Prediction and Climate Science One great thing satellites have done for us is improve our ability to forecast weather. Predicting a slight chance of cloudiness is all well and good, but some areas, like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, are dependent on such systems to predict potentially hazardous monsoons. And in the U.S., the NOAA has estimated that, during a typical hurricane season, weather satellites save as much as $3 billion in lives and property damage. Hurricane Ivan (NOAA) There’s also the effect on science to consider. Much of what we know about climate change comes from satellites. As McDowell explains, the first couple of weeks without satellites wouldn’t make much of a difference. But over a ten-year span, the lack of satellites would preclude our ability to understand and monitor such things as the ozone layer, carbon dioxide levels, and the distribution of polar ice. Ground-based and balloon-driven systems would help, but much of the data we’re currently tracking would suddenly become much spottier. Without satellites, you can say goodbye to maps like this (NOAA) “We’re quite dependent on satellites for a global view of what’s happening on our planet — and at a time when we really, really need to know what’s happening,” says McDowell. It’s also worth pointing out that, without satellites, we also wouldn’t be able to monitor space weather, such as incoming space storms. It's also disingenuous to discount the role the space program plays in inspiring people to become scientists and engineers, like myself and I'm sure a hefty number of people on this board.
- FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
  You're probably looking at a price curve that declines linearly. Any industry that's been heavily influenced by information technology will see a Moore's Law-like increase in productivity. Ever since the 1760's or so (little Industrial Rev.), we've been underoing a great acceleration of technological change. Sequencing a human genome in 2003 cost $3 billion. In what is likely the greatest price drop in history, you can get a genome sequenced today for $1000. You're also thinking we're just going to ship up excavators, cranes and other heavy industrial construction equipment. Smart money says that we'd just launch a series of automonous drones that can either self-replicate or simply construct what it needs from the materials on the asteroid and some stock materials. Think of launching an SCV from Starcraft instead of the crew and equipment from Armageddon. If Elon Musk is going to get his planetary transit system off the ground, he's going to need space mining to bring down the cost curve....or a space elevator that magically appears. I believe that SpaceX is seriously looking into asteroid mining as well
vtange 10y ago
I wonder if we'll eventually see a day when people debate over the environmental consequences of resource extraction on Mars.
- bbernard 10y ago
  The meaning of your statement isn't clear. Do you see resource extraction on Earth as something having no consequences whatsoever?
  - vtange 10y ago
    No, I just find it interesting how we only care about places we would inhabit. The parent comment suggested that asteroids are OK for unrestricted mining since it's, well, not a place people could inhabit and develop feelings for, like Earth or Mars.
    - lazaroclapp 10y ago
      It also has to do a bit with whether or not other lifeforms inhabit the place. Mars is unlikely to have any life on it, and certainly no pluricellular life without some extensive terraforming. If we ever get to that point, the discussion over preservation of a biosphere we ourselves created is certainly going to be a bit different in its implications...
  - stdbrouw 10y ago
    The author wonders whether there will come a day when see Mars as not just something we exploit but as a home we must protect, just like Earth.
    - mirimir 10y ago
      Well, great efforts have actually been made to prevent contamination of Mars etc. But that's been for scientific reasons, in large part.
    - FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
cgh 10y ago
> Extractive mining is terrible for the environment and ecosystems. This depends on how and where it is done. For example, underground hard rock mining in a western country, eg Canada, is relatively benign. By far the biggest impact is caused by road building, and these are decommissioned after the mine's lifetime (which can be decades). Clearcut logging has much greater long-term repercussions. Mining is often maligned unfairly.
- hueving 10y ago
  >Clearcut logging has much greater long-term repercussions. Mining is often maligned unfairly. Definitely. The biggest damage to the Amazon rainforest is the development of farms. People advocating for more inefficient farming (e.g. 'organic', 'local') are doing significantly more damage to the environment than extractive mining. One important caveat, I'm only applying this to modern mining operations like those in US/Canada that follow pollution regs.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - ergothus 10y ago
    > I'm only applying this to modern mining operations like those in US/Canada that follow pollution regs. I am by no means a mining expert, but most of my exposure comes from east-coast US, where a lot of the mines (well...a lot of the mines you hear about - there could a great many very nice mines that I never heard of) have problems with acidic wash off, strip mining, etc. I know SOME of the issues I've listed are impacted by modern environment regs (at least until those get rolled back under the current lawmakers), but I don't know if they all are. Can you expand your point?
  - caust1c 10y ago
    Organic, sure. Local? I disagree. I'm sure it's hard to measure, but I imagine the impact of transporting perishable foods long distances is pretty great. More than either of those things though, a heavy meat diet is much more inefficient than a vegetarian one. And if I'm not mistaken, a lot of the rainforest is becoming pastures for raising cattle.

vkou 10y ago

The energy requirements of getting things into space, and moving things in space around makes asteroid mining an unmitigated environmental disaster.

krasin 10y ago
Not necessarily, if at some point a space colony is sustainable and mostly sends things down the gravity well, rather than up.
- vkou 10y ago
  Still not the case, because they need to redirect asteroids into low earth orbit/the orbit of the colony. (And then expend a ton of energy to match orbits.) The economics of asteroid mining only make sense if you're: 1. Using the mined materials for space construction. But why are you doing space construction in the first place? So you can do more asteroid mining? So you can do more space construction? 2. You've found an asteroid made of pure unobtanium.
  - ericd 10y ago
    Not unobtanium, but 90 million tons of platinum is worth a decent amount. https://www.rt.com/news/310170-platinum-asteroid-2011-uw-158/ https://www.rt.com/news/310170-platinum-asteroid-2011-uw-158...
    - sqeaky 10y ago
      I am so curious what will actually happen when someone tries to mine one of these. With they retain their mining rights and sell carefully, or will the price of platinum crash? With a government steal it and will there be wars over it?
      - ericd 10y ago
        Heh yeah, interesting to ponder. I imagine that others will race off to mine other asteroids, and the price of platinum and other rare metals/minerals will plummet. Or maybe you'll get a resurgence of nation-state-level companies like the old Dutch East Indies company, as well as piracy.
  - krasin 10y ago
    >they need to redirect asteroids into low earth orbit/the orbit of the colony. (And then expend a ton of energy to match orbits.) Which basically means a sustainable colony must produce a ton of energy. Good news, producing energy in the space is actually cheaper than on Earth: you have a lot of solar, and nuclear is no longer a hazard.
  - FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
    > The economics of asteroid mining only make sense if you're: You're using linear projections. Elon Musk's entire goal with SpaceX is the Interplanetary Transit System. I also think that it will be a boon to multinational corporations who want to perform research/experiments that are either not possible, heavily regulated, or outright banned on earth. > 1. Using the mined materials for space construction. But why are you doing space construction in the first place? So you can do more asteroid mining? So you can do more space construction? Yes, exactly. Space exploration is a bit limited without construction in space. There's also the likely scenario that as the world becomes wealther, our consumption of technology will also grow. Look at the bet on AI and the huge capital investment necessary to run ML/DL projects. A combination of increased demand and an increase in global wealth which raises people's standards of living is also going to increase the cos of mining as people's environmental awareness is raised. SpaceX has a plan for the colonization of Mars, so yes, to do more space construction.
jon_richards 10y ago
How bad are the environmental effects other than global warming? I imagine by the time we can mine asteroids we will be able to offset huge amounts of global warming through sunshades and similar ideas.
bbernard 10y ago
What do you think creates more pollution between: 1. All airlines in the world. 2. All cars in the world. 3. All factories in the world. 4. All rockets in the world. Right now, I think that 1, 2 and 3 combined have much deeper consequences than 4.
- vkou 10y ago
  What economic value do all airlines, cars, factories in the world produce? They are the reason we don't live in mud huts, poking at eachother with sharp sticks. Now, what economic value do all rockets in the world produce? Satellite TV and GPS? Satellite weather reports that we complain about, and climate studies that we ignore? And those are the low-hanging fruits. The ROI of a GPS network, a communication network, and orbital climate satellites is miles better then that of asteroid mining.
  - bbernard 10y ago
    I guess that we see things differently. On one hand, you see the economic value of airlines, cars and factories, so for you it justifies the environmental consequences that they have. Fair enough. On the other hand, you don't see the economic value of asteroid mining and of getting things into space, so you talk about the consequences that it might have on the environment. Did you know that asteroids represent an endless supply of rare metals (gold, platinum, etc.)? Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining#Purpose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining#Purpose if you don't believe me. This might represent the biggest economic opportunity of all times. And if we want to become a "multi-planetary species" as Elon Musk suggests, this will probably be essential. Now, I personally tend to be more on the environment's side. So as long as we use those metals to build things on other planets and in space, I don't see any problem. We'll need to be responsible with this.
  - FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
    > Now, what economic value do all rockets in the world produce? The development of rocket technology and the resulting space program has had the greatest effect on our modern world save pretty much produced our connected, modern world and developments from our space program probably form the bedrock of many of our most advanced industries. Have you ever been in an airplane that doesn't have GPS? Let' s just say I'd be drving, taking the train a lot more places than go back to planes using old landing technology It is simply disingenuous of you to completely dismiss and reduce the importance of GPS and Satellitle communications. Major communications networks, banking systems, financial markets and power grids depend heavily on GPS for precise time synchronization. Nearly all new military assets — from vehicles to munitions — come equipped with GPS. We're conducting whole wars by drone. If you actually do care about the economic and security importance of the satellite (It's more than just DishTV) and GPS network, here's an actual study: http://marshall.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Day-without-Space-Oct-16-2008.pdf http://marshall.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Day-without-S... Or you could just google "what would happen to us if satellites disappeared" Here are some results: “Apart from the fact that everyone has forgotten to navigate without GPS in their cars, many airplanes use GPS as well,” says McDowell. Though backup systems exist, airlines use GPS to chart the most fuel-efficient and expeditious routes. Without GPS and telecomm-sats, aircraft controllers would have tremendous difficulty communicating with and routing airplanes. Airlines would have to fall back to legacy systems and procedures. Given the sheer volume of airline traffic today, accidents would be all but guaranteed. Other affected navigation systems would include those aboard cargo vessels, supply-chain management systems, and transportation hubs driven by GPS. But GPS does more than just provide positioning — it also provides for timing. Ground-based atomic clocks can perform the same function, but GPS is increasingly being used to distribute the universal time standard via satellites. Within hours of a terminated service, any distributing networks requiring tight synchronization would start to suffer from “clock drift,” leading to serious performance issues and outright service outages. Such disruptions could affect everything from the power grid through to the financial sector. In the report, “A Day Without Space: Economic and National Security Ramifications,” Ed Morris, the Executive Director of the Office of Space Commerce at the Department of Commerce, writes: If you think it is hard to get work done when your internet connection goes out at the office, imagine losing that plus your cell phone, TV, radio, ATM access, credit cards, and possibly even your electricity. [...] Wireless services, especially those built to CDMA standard, would fail to hand off calls from one cell to the next, leading to dropped connections. Computer networks would experience slowdowns as data is pushed through finite pipelines at reduced bit rates. The same would be true for major networks for communication and entertainment, since they are all IP-based today and require ultra-precise timing to ensure digital traffic reaches its destination. The lack of effective synch would hit especially hard in banking, where the timing of transactions needs to be recorded. Credit card payments and bank accounts would likely freeze, as billions of dollars could be sucked away from businesses. A financial crash is not out of the question. The Loss of Military Capability The sudden loss of satellite capability would have a profound effect on the military. Useless without GPS: The U.S. Navy’s Harpoon missile (U.S. Navy) The Marshall Institute puts it this way: “Space is a critical enabler to all U.S. warfare domains,” including intelligence, navigation, communications, weather prediction, and warfare. McDowell describes satellite capability as as the “backbone” of the U.S. military. And as 21st century warfare expert Peter W. Singer from New America Foundation tells io9, “He who controls the heavens will control what happens in the battles of Earth.” Singer summarized the military consequences of losing satellites in an email to us: Today there are some 1,100 active satellites which act as the nervous system of not just our economy, but also our military. Everything from communications to GPS to intelligence all depend on it. Potential foes have noticed, which is why Russia and China have recently begun testing a new generation of anti-satellite weapons, which in turn has sparked the U.S. military to recently budget $5 billion for various space warfare systems. What would happen if we lost access to space? Well, the battles would, as one U.S. military officer put it, take us back to the “pre digital age.” Our drones, our missiles, even our ground units wouldn’t be able to operate the way we plan. It would force a rewrite of all our assumptions of 21st century high tech war. We might have a new generation of stealthy battleships...but the loss of space would mean naval battles would in many ways be like the game of Battleship, where the two sides would struggle to even find each other. Moreover, and as McDowell explains to io9, the loss of satellite capability would have a profound effect on arms control capabilities. Space systems can monitor compliance; without them, we’d be running blind. “The overarching consideration is that you wouldn’t really know what’s going on,” says McDowell. “Satellites provide for both global and local views of what’s happening. We would be less connected, less informed — and with considerably degraded situational awareness.” Compromised Weather Prediction and Climate Science One great thing satellites have done for us is improve our ability to forecast weather. Predicting a slight chance of cloudiness is all well and good, but some areas, like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, are dependent on such systems to predict potentially hazardous monsoons. And in the U.S., the NOAA has estimated that, during a typical hurricane season, weather satellites save as much as $3 billion in lives and property damage. Hurricane Ivan (NOAA) There’s also the effect on science to consider. Much of what we know about climate change comes from satellites. As McDowell explains, the first couple of weeks without satellites wouldn’t make much of a difference. But over a ten-year span, the lack of satellites would preclude our ability to understand and monitor such things as the ozone layer, carbon dioxide levels, and the distribution of polar ice. Ground-based and balloon-driven systems would help, but much of the data we’re currently tracking would suddenly become much spottier. Without satellites, you can say goodbye to maps like this (NOAA) “We’re quite dependent on satellites for a global view of what’s happening on our planet — and at a time when we really, really need to know what’s happening,” says McDowell. It’s also worth pointing out that, without satellites, we also wouldn’t be able to monitor space weather, such as incoming space storms. It's also disingenuous to discount the role the space program plays in inspiring people to become scientists and engineers, like myself and I'm sure a hefty number of people on this board.
FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
You're probably looking at a price curve that declines linearly. Any industry that's been heavily influenced by information technology will see a Moore's Law-like increase in productivity. Ever since the 1760's or so (little Industrial Rev.), we've been underoing a great acceleration of technological change. Sequencing a human genome in 2003 cost $3 billion. In what is likely the greatest price drop in history, you can get a genome sequenced today for $1000. You're also thinking we're just going to ship up excavators, cranes and other heavy industrial construction equipment. Smart money says that we'd just launch a series of automonous drones that can either self-replicate or simply construct what it needs from the materials on the asteroid and some stock materials. Think of launching an SCV from Starcraft instead of the crew and equipment from Armageddon. If Elon Musk is going to get his planetary transit system off the ground, he's going to need space mining to bring down the cost curve....or a space elevator that magically appears. I believe that SpaceX is seriously looking into asteroid mining as well

vtange 10y ago

I wonder if we'll eventually see a day when people debate over the environmental consequences of resource extraction on Mars.

bbernard 10y ago
The meaning of your statement isn't clear. Do you see resource extraction on Earth as something having no consequences whatsoever?
- vtange 10y ago
  No, I just find it interesting how we only care about places we would inhabit. The parent comment suggested that asteroids are OK for unrestricted mining since it's, well, not a place people could inhabit and develop feelings for, like Earth or Mars.
  - lazaroclapp 10y ago
    It also has to do a bit with whether or not other lifeforms inhabit the place. Mars is unlikely to have any life on it, and certainly no pluricellular life without some extensive terraforming. If we ever get to that point, the discussion over preservation of a biosphere we ourselves created is certainly going to be a bit different in its implications...
- stdbrouw 10y ago
  The author wonders whether there will come a day when see Mars as not just something we exploit but as a home we must protect, just like Earth.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    Well, great efforts have actually been made to prevent contamination of Mars etc. But that's been for scientific reasons, in large part.
  - FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago

cgh 10y ago

> Extractive mining is terrible for the environment and ecosystems. This depends on how and where it is done. For example, underground hard rock mining in a western country, eg Canada, is relatively benign. By far the biggest impact is caused by road building, and these are decommissioned after the mine's lifetime (which can be decades). Clearcut logging has much greater long-term repercussions. Mining is often maligned unfairly.

hueving 10y ago
>Clearcut logging has much greater long-term repercussions. Mining is often maligned unfairly. Definitely. The biggest damage to the Amazon rainforest is the development of farms. People advocating for more inefficient farming (e.g. 'organic', 'local') are doing significantly more damage to the environment than extractive mining. One important caveat, I'm only applying this to modern mining operations like those in US/Canada that follow pollution regs.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ergothus 10y ago
  > I'm only applying this to modern mining operations like those in US/Canada that follow pollution regs. I am by no means a mining expert, but most of my exposure comes from east-coast US, where a lot of the mines (well...a lot of the mines you hear about - there could a great many very nice mines that I never heard of) have problems with acidic wash off, strip mining, etc. I know SOME of the issues I've listed are impacted by modern environment regs (at least until those get rolled back under the current lawmakers), but I don't know if they all are. Can you expand your point?
- caust1c 10y ago
  Organic, sure. Local? I disagree. I'm sure it's hard to measure, but I imagine the impact of transporting perishable foods long distances is pretty great. More than either of those things though, a heavy meat diet is much more inefficient than a vegetarian one. And if I'm not mistaken, a lot of the rainforest is becoming pastures for raising cattle.