Ripples from Pebble felt far from Alaska

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/23/pebble-mine-alaska-environment-salmon-indigenous-people?intcmp=122


Drilling for core samples at the proposed site of Pebble mine by Lake Iliamna in Alaska. Iliamna is the largest undeveloped lake in the US and a crucial nursery for young salmon. Photograph: Bridget Besaw/ Bridget Besaw/Aurora Photos/Corbis


Rick Halford is a "manifest destiny" kind of Alaskan. He cleared his land with dynamite. He calls himself the "ideal redneck Republican". As a longtime leader in the state legislature, he never met a hard-rock mine he didn't like.

That is, until he took a long look at the proposed Pebble Mine in south-west Alaska. It is a phenomenal prospect, the biggest and richest in North America. But to dig a mine there is to make a Faustian bargain that involves an agonizing Alaskan twist.

In return for copper and gold worth an estimated $500bn (£320bn), state and federal regulators risk poisoning what scientists describe as the last best place on earth for millions of wild salmon.

[Arctic Dave]

1. Fuck the Pebble Mine.

Salmon first!

[pscot]

2. The Midas touch

Poison the earth and destroy your future for a handful of yellow metal.

[GliderGuider]

3. What good is an un-monetized ecosystem?

Salmon? NPV=0. Fish don't make money, fish don't spend money, and fish don't vote. Screw 'em, they're just fish. All you damn greenies and Eskimos can just go eat at MacDonald's like real Americans.

[XemaSab]

4. Ahem:

[xchrom]

5. horrifying...

but