Mining!

Have you thought about the impact of mining? I hadn't. Very very recently I started researching the impacts of mining on forests, the environment and how they are long term (not "short term" as all mining reports claim. This naturally made me start to research sustainable mining but I hit a dead end. It seems that there is no such thing...considering how much earth's population relies on mining...that is sad :(

But its very nature, mining is digging out or stripping what we value from what we undervalue. Economically gold does not have the same price as a living tree in the forest. You can make huge income and profit on the mineral deposits under the ground but not so much from letting what is above that ground alone. I read article after article about governments not wanting to force capacity building on mining companies incase they stop mining there due to the "added cost". Shouldn't someone hold them accountable? Shouldn't that someone be the government? When you are measuring profit in millions, you can't tell me that spending a few thousand on being more sustainable or not raping the environment you leave behind will be a deterrent.

Considering that our planet has finite resources...shouldn't that be more valuable to the global population than the jewelry they wear or more valuable to governments than losing (unlikely) a small number of mining contracts?!?

Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_mining