Which in your opinion does more damage to this country? (1 Viewer)

[ALiberalModerate]

Which in your opinion does more damage to this country, environmental groups like The Sierra Club, or the companies that do this?

 

[mrjurrs]

Which in your opinion does more damage to this country, The Sierra Club, or the companies that do this?

The answer is obvious to anyone that cares about their children's future more than their own.

 

[EdwinWillers]

Or perhaps companies that do this?



....or this?



...or perhaps this?

 

[ALiberalModerate]

Or perhaps companies that do this?

View attachment 67385099

....or this?

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...or perhaps this?

View attachment 67385101

You can't be serious. You are comparing solar and wind farms, to mountaintop removal mining, the single most environmentally destructive activity in American history. Do wind farms result entire mountains being blown up and the land scared for hundreds of millions of years?

 

[aociswundumho]

Which in your opinion does more damage to this country, environmental groups like The Sierra Club, or the companies that do this?

The mining takes place because raw materials are needed to produce the stuff people like you demand.

 

[phoenix2020]

Which in your opinion does more damage to this country, environmental groups like The Sierra Club, or the companies that do this?

Hard to say since the photo is unattributed: we have no idea what was being mined nor for what purpose. If you could describe more precisely exactly what is happening in the lower image, by whom, and for what reason, then we can offer opinions.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

The mining takes place because raw materials are needed to produce the stuff people like you demand.

The mountaintop removal mining takes place because the coal industry spends 100 to 200 dollars in lobbying for every dollar environmental groups spend. Moreover, we have a replacement for coal that doesn't require scarring our land for hundreds of millions of years, its natural gas.

This is why you guys are not taken seriously when it comes to conservation. It's because you don't care. Here you are rationalizing mountaintop removal mining, the environmentally destructive act in our country's history.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

Hard to say since the photo is unattributed: we have no idea what was being mined nor for what purpose. If you could describe more precisely exactly what is happening in the lower image, by whom, and for what reason, then we can offer opinions.

Its mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia.

 

[HIP56948]

Most organizations like the sierra club usually try to do the right thing for everybody. Most corporations usually try to do the best for their owners no matter
what it does to/for the other 8 billion humans.

 

[EdwinWillers]

You can't be serious. You are comparing solar and wind farms, to mountaintop removal mining, the single most environmentally destructive activity in American history. Do wind farms result entire mountains being blown up and the land scared for hundreds of millions of years?

Holy cow. Hyperbole much?

Heck, I live around probably at least a hundred "permanent scars" on the land - gravel pit mines and the like - and all of them BY LAW are required to return the land to its native condition after operations cease - as is also the case with mining. We have hundreds of lakes and ponds now we didn't have before - such a travesty. smh.

Now, consider what happens to wind farms when they've outlived their usefulness - in about 20 or 30 years. 500+ cubic yards of buried concrete for every tower abandoned. Blades that cannot be recycled except very uneconomically. Steel towers that cannot be re-used. Did you realize some of the newer towers are all concrete? And what do you think happens to those steel towers in the ocean when they're obsolete?
Or do you realize just how much trash is generated by one solar farm? All those panels came to the site packaged in cardboard and wood and plastic and styrofoam. On one of the typical farms my company did, the cost to dispose of all that trash was over $600,000.

Sure, mining alters the permanent terrain - but as mentioned, current laws require the land to undergo restoration after cessation of operations.

"Blown up and scared for hundreds of millions of years" Good grief, how naive can someone get?

 

[phoenix2020]

Its mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia.

Got it. Let's do the math. The latest reference I can find is that Sierra Club sent out 20 million pieces of junk mail in 2018. I can attest to this, as it was around 2018 that I stopped supporting them because I got tired of all the junk mail. Doing some rough back-of-envelope math I would estimate that the Sierra Club kills about 600 trees per year for its junk mail. It's hard to tell how many trees were killed to support that coal mine but 100,000 doesn't seem unreasonable at all, so I'll use that as my guess. Therefore I would say this coal mine does approximately 166x as much damage as the Sierra Club.

Next question?

 

[ALiberalModerate]

Holy cow. Hyperbole much?

Heck, I live around probably at least a hundred "permanent scars" on the land - gravel pit mines and the like - and all of them BY LAW are required to return the land to its native condition after operations cease - as is also the case with mining. We have hundreds of lakes and ponds now we didn't have before - such a travesty. smh.

Now, consider what happens to wind farms when they've outlived their usefulness - in about 20 or 30 years. 500+ cubic yards of buried concrete for every tower abandoned. Blades that cannot be recycled except very uneconomically. Steel towers that cannot be re-used. Did you realize some of the newer towers are all concrete? And what do you think happens to those steel towers in the ocean when they're obsolete?
Or do you realize just how much trash is generated by one solar farm? All those panels came to the site packaged in cardboard and wood and plastic and styrofoam. On one of the typical farms my company did, the cost to dispose of all that trash was over $600,000.

Sure, mining alters the permanent terrain - but as mentioned, current laws require the land to undergo restoration after cessation of operations.

"Blown up and scared for hundreds of millions of years" Good grief, how naive can someone get?

Traditional mining is in no way comparable to mountaintop removal mining. I think you are arguing from ignorance here. Mountaintop removal mining blows up entire mountains, has destroyed tens of thousands of miles of rivers and streams, and destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres of forest. Reclamation on it only restores it to potential commercial usage.

You need to do some research into it before you come to an opinion on it.

 

[EdwinWillers]

Holy cow. Hyperbole much?

Heck, I live around probably at least a hundred "permanent scars" on the land - gravel pit mines and the like - and all of them BY LAW are required to return the land to its native condition after operations cease - as is also the case with mining. We have hundreds of lakes and ponds now we didn't have before - such a travesty. smh.

Now, consider what happens to wind farms when they've outlived their usefulness - in about 20 or 30 years. 500+ cubic yards of buried concrete for every tower abandoned. Blades that cannot be recycled except very uneconomically. Steel towers that cannot be re-used. Did you realize some of the newer towers are all concrete? And what do you think happens to those steel towers in the ocean when they're obsolete?
Or do you realize just how much trash is generated by one solar farm? All those panels came to the site packaged in cardboard and wood and plastic and styrofoam. On one of the typical farms my company did, the cost to dispose of all that trash was over $600,000.

Sure, mining alters the permanent terrain - but as mentioned, current laws require the land to undergo restoration after cessation of operations.

"Blown up and scared for hundreds of millions of years" Good grief, how naive can someone get?

And re the wind farms alone - that's IF the companies do anything about recycling the land, which most do not because they've gone out of business as well:



Have you ANY idea how many abandoned wind turbines there are in the US alone??

 

[ALiberalModerate]

And re the wind farms alone - that's IF the companies do anything about recycling the land, which most do not because they've gone out of business as well:

View attachment 67385105View attachment 67385106

Have you ANY idea how many abandoned wind turbines there are in the US alone??

Even if there were hundreds of thousands of them, they would not equal the environmental destruction of a single mountaintop removal mine. Can you see those abandoned wind turbines with the naked eye from space? I ask because the amount of destruction from a single mountaintop removal mine is visible from orbit.

Again, you are arguing from ignorance. Moreover, its not that the alternative to coal is just wind or solar, its natural gas, hydro, nuclear, wind, and solar.

 

[EdwinWillers]

Traditional mining is in now way comparable to mountaintop removal mining. I think you are arguing from ignorance here. Mountaintop removal mining blows up entire mountains, has destroyed tens of thousands of miles of rivers and streams, and destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres of forest. Reclamation on it only restores it to potential commercial usage.

You need to do some research into it before you come to an opinion on it.

Oh stop. At least I'm not arguing from an asinine comparison of the Sierra Club to mountaintop mining. My argument is far more relevant and germane than yours.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

Oh stop. At least I'm not arguing from an asinine comparison of the Sierra Club to mountaintop mining. My argument is far more relevant and germane than yours.

Your argument is an argument from ignorance. You are making absurd comparisons between wind farms and mountaintop removal mining. That is like comparing misdemeanor assault to genocide. I made the comparison to the Sierra Club, which I am not a fan of btw, because they get demonized much more than companies that do that to our country.

 

[EdwinWillers]

Your argument is an argument from ignorance. You are making absurd comparisons between wind farms and mountaintop removal mining. That is like comparing misdemeanor assault to genocide. I made the comparison to the Sierra Club, which I am not a fan of btw, because they get demonized much more than companies that do that to our country.

That's the third time you've said that - and the third time you're wrong. I know what maountain top mining is and I know the scars it has left on the landscape - and yeah, those scars are "uglier" than the Sierra Club - although how it's possible to compare the two still remains a complete mystery to me.

And if you're someone who lives in Appalachia, you probably have a keener sense of concern about it than someone like myself - who lives near one of the largest holes in the earth, a molybdenum mine and not that far from the largest coal pit mines in the Powder River Basin - mines that are doing to generally flat land as compared to mountain tops the same basic thing - they blast to break up the ground then go in and doze it to collect the coal - and in the process create massive "scars" on the land that weren't there before.

However - and there's always a however in life - these companies, when done with their mining, are by law required to reclaim the land to its original state - in the case of Wyoming, to prairie, or West Virginia, to forest. Admittedly, they weren't always thus obligated, but that's changed and today's laws are much stricter. Moreover, given how much coal exists in many of these mines, the operations can go on for decades before any reclamation needs to occur - so yeah, in the interim you have a scar that some one-in-a-million individual might notice from outer space (an astronaut).

 

[EdwinWillers]

And for the edification of others here - reclamation CAN and DOES occur to mountaintop mines - though I will admit that it likely doesn't occur as often as it should and that there is very likely more that needs to be done - but IT CAN WORK



...and I'm all for reclamation efforts and ensuring mining companies carry out their legal obligations to reclaim lands after mining operations are completed.

 

[bongsaway]

Holy cow. Hyperbole much?

Heck, I live around probably at least a hundred "permanent scars" on the land - gravel pit mines and the like - and all of them BY LAW are required to return the land to its native condition after operations cease - as is also the case with mining. We have hundreds of lakes and ponds now we didn't have before - such a travesty. smh.

Now, consider what happens to wind farms when they've outlived their usefulness - in about 20 or 30 years. 500+ cubic yards of buried concrete for every tower abandoned. Blades that cannot be recycled except very uneconomically. Steel towers that cannot be re-used. Did you realize some of the newer towers are all concrete? And what do you think happens to those steel towers in the ocean when they're obsolete?
Or do you realize just how much trash is generated by one solar farm? All those panels came to the site packaged in cardboard and wood and plastic and styrofoam. On one of the typical farms my company did, the cost to dispose of all that trash was over $600,000.

Sure, mining alters the permanent terrain - but as mentioned, current laws require the land to undergo restoration after cessation of operations.

"Blown up and scared for hundreds of millions of years" Good grief, how naive can someone get?

You forgot to mention all the birds windmills kill.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

You forgot to mention all the birds windmills kill.

Of which coal mining alone kills an order of magnitude more.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

And for the edification of others here - reclamation CAN and DOES occur to mountaintop mines - though I will admit that it likely doesn't occur as often as it should and that there is very likely more that needs to be done - but IT CAN WORK



...and I'm all for reclamation efforts and ensuring mining companies carry out their legal obligations to reclaim lands after mining operations are completed.

Oh well if a PR film for the Coal Industry claims it... Maybe if Planned Parenthood released a video of how happy embryos are when they get to be flushed down a sink - like its a water park for them, you would change your mind about the abortion issue. I mean, it would be a YouTube video, so that would have to be super convincing to you.

Seriously, this is so stupid.

 

[EdwinWillers]

Oh well if a PR film for the Coal Industry claims it... Maybe if Planned Parenthood released a video of how happy embryos are when they get to be flushed down a sink - like its a water park for them, you would change your mind about the abortion issue. I mean, it would be a YouTube video, so that would have to be super convincing to you.

Seriously, this is so stupid.

It's totally a PR film - I admit. But there are literally scores of similar videos that aren't.

Look - I'm not going to press this argument any further. As I said, I'm all for reclamation efforts and ensuring mining companies carry out their legal obligations to reclaim lands after mining operations are completed.

And yes, mining does do damage to the ecosystem - HOWEVER - such damage isn't necessarily permanent and needn't be permanent. Proper reclamation efforts CAN and DO in many cases "fix" the damage done by mines.

But as another poster here noted as well - mines perform a much needed, necessary service to our economy too that we cannot dismiss. Let's just all work together to make sure it's done responsibly.

 

[Lursa]

Or perhaps companies that do this?

View attachment 67385099

....or this?

View attachment 67385100

...or perhaps this?

View attachment 67385101

Those things can all be easily removed in the future and the windmill farms have a very small environmental footprint, basically just access roads, like for cell towers. Are we getting rid of cell towers now? Even the bird hits have been reduced.

There are also a ton of other options, with mainstreaming, where solar panel farms can be located.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

It's totally a PR film - I admit. But there are literally scores of similar videos that aren't.

Look - I'm not going to press this argument any further. As I said, I'm all for reclamation efforts and ensuring mining companies carry out their legal obligations to reclaim lands after mining operations are completed.

Legal obligations they spend massive amounts of money ensuring they are as watered down as possible.

And yes, mining does do damage to the ecosystem - HOWEVER - such damage isn't necessarily permanent and needn't be permanent. Proper reclamation efforts CAN and DO in many cases "fix" the damage done by mines.

But as another poster here noted as well - mines perform a much needed, necessary service to our economy too that we cannot dismiss. Let's just all work together to make sure it's done responsibly.

You are comparing traditional mining to mountaintop removal coal mining, there is no comparison between the two. It's like when people on the left rail against natural gas fracking without realizing that natural gas is what is putting out of business and the worst case imaginable with fracking is still exponentially less environmentally destructive than the best case scenario for mountaintop removal coal ming.

 

[Lursa]

Holy cow. Hyperbole much?

Heck, I live around probably at least a hundred "permanent scars" on the land - gravel pit mines and the like - and all of them BY LAW are required to return the land to its native condition after operations cease - as is also the case with mining. We have hundreds of lakes and ponds now we didn't have before - such a travesty. smh.

You cant seriously believe that that 'fixes' all that was lost originally, do you?

And it doesnt even happen a lot of the time. The companies just declare bankruptcy and re-open under a different name. Or they have catastrophic accidents, like just happened down in FL.

I've been watching this for 50 yrs, I studied it in college and my Bachelor of Science is in Natural Resource Management. I've seen the corporate asshats lying and failing and the lack of real change.