4 ms·
We allow poor people to mine tiny bits of gold by burning (boiling?) off mercury, poisoning themselves, their family, and the whole ecosystem, as their nervous
by coryrc 5y ago
We allow poor people to mine tiny bits of gold by burning (boiling?) off mercury, poisoning themselves, their family, and the whole ecosystem, as their nervous systems degenerate like a slow form of torture.
This is tame.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/28/climate/amazon-forest-mercury-peru.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/28/climate/amazon-forest-mer...
- sofixa 5y agoSame with "artisanal" cobalt mining.
- monstermachine 5y agoNot to mention more than 80% of gold use is superficial. Majority of it is held in banks and reserves. https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-industry-sector-share/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-in...
- tim333 5y agoWell "illegal gold mining" is banned kind of by definition. Admittedly it seems Peru and places aren't enforcing the laws as well as they could but it's kind of a different category of problem. And I'm not sure you can regard the US as responsible for making gold valuable as it was for thousands of years before the US existed.
- coryrc 5y agoI'm just comparing people who intentionally make a choice to poison themselves and so many animals around them for tiny shiny bits opposed to unintentional deaths during medical research. I don't blame US in any way.