You might think this is a Western scene in the USA. It isn't. This is actually an area near Ducktown, Tennessee, stripped of vegetation by copper mining and its attendant horrors. These were once Cherokee lands filled with vegetation, but the Cherokee were forced away or into hiding in the 1830s, and the mining companies moved in. Eventually, they left, too -- but what did they leave behind?
Mining for brimstone (sulfur/sulphur) and later, silver and gold. As geologist Samuel P. Ellison, Jr., pointed out, nearly forty years ago:
Deposits of all minerals, including sulfur, are limited in extent. Once a mineral has been mined from a property and sold, its value to the property is gone. There is no second or third crop. The exhaustibility of minerals creates dramatic social distress situations. Ghost towns develop; unemployment and low living standards follow closely on the heels of mine and mineral depletion. Sulfur desposits are no exception for they, too, are exhaustible.
Ellison, Sulfur in Texas (UT-Austin Bureau of Economic Geology, Handbook No. 2, 1971), p. 35.
"An example of complete destruction can be seen in the vicinity of Ducktown, Tennesee, where, in a short period of time when sulfur dioxide fumes were allowed to escape from a copper smelter, the entire countryside was denuded of vegetation." (Ibid.)
Or, as Jim Morrison and the Doors mused in 1967:
What have they done to the earth?
What have they done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn
And tied her with fences and dragged her down . . .
("When the Music's Over"). And presently in the Gulf, BP does not inspire good feelings. This weekend, the corporation will try its "Top Kill" approach to sealing the Deepwater Horizon puncture leaks on the ocean floor, still geysering oil more than a month after the initial explosion.
Today's Rune: Partnership.
9 comments:
Maybe they should have tried their "top kill" approach a little sooner.
At this point, I feel like BP should never be given another offshore license ever again.
Did you see that Rand Paul's son called Obama "unpatriotic" for criticizing British Petroleum's response? Did he miss the "British" part of that? Or perhaps he wants the crown back in charge here.
One more point. In his book "Collapse," Jared Diamond points out the long history that mineral miners have of getting licenses to mine public land-- cheap-- and walking away from the mess they leave, leaving the taxpayer to foot the clean-up bill. Free enterprise indeed. Free for them.
I always thought that the bit you quoted from the Doors might have been the truest thing ever written. Hard to fathom that the oil in the Gulf started gushing A MONTH AGO now. My soul hurts so badly...
Talk about "the scream of the butterfly", and "mute nostril agony". True sailing IS dead!
-JC
Well, as in the song,
"The took a whole Cherokee natin.
...Put us on a reservation."
Then they strip-mined the reservation.
In the words of Sarah Palin, "Drill, baby, drill."
After reading: "The exhaustibility of minerals creates dramatic social distress situations..." I can't help but think of all those buildings in Detroit stripped for their copper.
Erik, JM said it well. Poor Cherokee's.
Hey, thanks all for the comments! Charles and Johnny, agreed. Lana, JC, sad and sad and sad but true. Ivan, JR, Jodi, yes. JR, excellent point on the copper stripping at the other end, in Detroit.
Cheers all!
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