Does Righteousness Make An Environmentalist Right?

A small town in Romania is the latest nexus in the never ending battle between employers & employees on one side and environmental activists on the other.

A segment on Charles Adler's radio program caught my attention. It was about a new documentary called "Mine Your Own Business" that focuses on a pending mining project in the Romanian community of Rosia Montana. Gabriel Resources, a Canadian mining company wants to develop a gold & silver mine there, an operation that would employ many, many people. But heading up the charge against them is a Swiss woman named Stephanie Roth, who doesn't want things to change in this quaint ancient village.

I need to watch the documentary to form a final opinion, but as a former mining engineer I'm very much aware of the pros and cons of mining development. I have little doubt that it'll show quite a different view than the glowing video of Ms. Roth found here.

The Roths of the world are very prevalent in my home province of British Columbia. When their party of choice, the NDP, were in power for 10 years [1991-2001], they effectively shut down all new mining development. It should be noted that during the NDP's reign, B.C. changed from a "have" to a "have not" province. While B.C.'s Canadian and American neighbours were enjoying an economic boom during the late 90's, my province was suffering through blatant mismanagement and economic loss.

No industrial process can be guaranteed to be perfectly safe. And in times past mining has had a very poor environmental record. But that has dramatically changed. I know dozens upon dozens of people in the mining industry and every single one of them cares about the environment as much, if not much more so, than the average citizen. To thus say that all mining is bad is ignorant to the extreme. There will always be an environmental cost with all industrial development but engineers and scientists are working hard to minimize it.

A final note: If you do watch the pro-Roth video you'll hear mention that cyanide is used in the gold extraction process. True. But it is safely used in countless mines around the world. Using "cyanide" to scare people about mining is akin to using the word "denier" in regard to global warming because it immediately makes people think of "Holocaust Deniers". Such rhetoric only dminishes the validity of what the person is saying ... at least in my mind!