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bravedubeck t1_j1uzyu3 wrote

Please, please, please don’t start strip mining Maine… :.(

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not_thanger t1_j1ze0n7 wrote

It's currently illegal to strip mine in Maine, they'll have to figure out a way around the regs first. Watch out for an increase in mining Co money in our elections and ballots

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mullenman87 t1_j1wbtd3 wrote

some of these elements are used to make electric car batteries..
are you against green energy?

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bravedubeck t1_j1wgshi wrote

This is a false dichotomy logical fallacy, and not worthy of discussion.

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curtludwig t1_j1wk69n wrote

Not really, it's NIMBY in action. People want virtue signaling via electric cars, what they don't want is to admit that electric cars are maybe not so good for the environment as they at first appear.

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FITM-K t1_j1xhrzx wrote

People want electric cars because dinosaur juice costs $4 a gallon and electricity is much cheaper (and free for anyone with solar panels). They're also more fun to drive and require less maintenance. It has nothing to do with "virtue signaling."

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curtludwig t1_j1yy6ru wrote

Ohhh, that explains why the government has to give tax incentives...

Another point to remember is that currently electric cars are not paying road tax since they're not buying fuel. At some point we're going to need to change that, we can't have a large proportion of our road users not supporting the roads they're using.

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FITM-K t1_j1zr7t1 wrote

Gas tax isn't the only way that taxpayers support road maintenance, but yes ultimately we'll need to replace the lost gas tax revenue somehow. Not really an insurmountable problem...

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curtludwig t1_j26wamn wrote

Its not the only way but EVs pay zero gas tax. On top of subsidies from the government...

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FITM-K t1_j27mvaz wrote

Subsidies cut both ways though. Oil companies get about $20 billion in our tax dollars every year (and have for decades).

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respaaaaaj t1_j1vlwtn wrote

So instead these things should only be mined in poor countries that can't afford to contain or prevent environmental damage, frequently by child or slave labor, with little to no oversight?

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lucidlilacdream t1_j1vt05m wrote

This would go into a poorer community. What are you talking about? There are 14k active mines in the US, mostly in poorer communities. Aroostook county is not a wealthy area, and it will poison the air and water in that area while those who don’t live there profit. This isn’t the same as Cape Elizabeth voting down affordable housing. This would actively harm people who cannot afford to leave the area and generate profits for people no where near Northern Maine.

The comments on here are ridiculous.

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curtludwig t1_j1wjvfc wrote

Lithium is largely mind in South America and China. Basically zero environmental oversight...

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not_thanger t1_j1ze84j wrote

Yeah and our regs will make it too expensive comparatively so they'll lobby to weaken them.

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respaaaaaj t1_j1vtj3v wrote

The poorest areas of the US that have mines have some of the best protected environments and citizens of anywhere in the world with mines.

Or do you think Aroostook is at risk of the fucking Wagner group seizing control of a mine claiming it was because they aren't being paid and removing any protections the workers and people who live around the mine have?

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lucidlilacdream t1_j1vum12 wrote

I actually worked on an air quality project in Arizona (which hosts the second largest number of mines in America), and there are places that are inhabitable because they are so poisonous. The mines are no where near the major cities. The vast majority of mining towns become ghost towns once the jobs dry up, leaving behind the poorest of the community to poisoned water and air. EPA clean up of these sites is often slow to non existent due to funding and bureaucracy, and often because these are towns inhabited by people who lack any economic power. Jobs aren’t even a good argument anymore, because a lot of mining jobs have become automated.

Again, if you want an environmental disaster in an already vulnerable and poor area that will benefit rich people who don’t live there, by all means.

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respaaaaaj t1_j1vuznh wrote

So you're saying that we should only have mines in countries too poor to say no? Because that's the end point of this kind of thinking

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lucidlilacdream t1_j1vv7rk wrote

This would go in a poor area in the US. I don’t know how else to explain that to you. This isn’t going into Cumberland County, it’s going into a rural part of Aroostook county. You are not advocating for anyone here.

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respaaaaaj t1_j1w2vgm wrote

Do you think people in Aroostook county or people in Burundi will suffer more for having a mine opened around them?

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lucidlilacdream t1_j1waoep wrote

First of all, for this to even be a fair argument the materials available in Maine and Burundi would have to be exactly the same, which is unlikely.

Second, I am not advocating mining in vulnerable places overseas. There should be less mining, less consumption, and more recycling and reusing of materials rather than ripping up the land in vulnerable communities. Many of mines in the US disproportionately impact Native communities, and poorer communities. It’s not social justice to move the impact from one vulnerable community to another. Where I worked on the air quality project, the air was full of lead and arsenic next to a school. The people being poisoned were children, all of who were low income and and majority Latino. Who profits off this? A few very wealthy people.

What we should be doing is mining less, extending the life of electronics, recycling electronics, and living with less. If you are truly worried about mining overseas, which I kind of doubt you are and assume you are trolling, then advocate for more environmental and human rights protections on a global level as well as more research and methods into recycling of metals. Advocate against corporate greed and over extraction of materials.

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respaaaaaj t1_j1wd6md wrote

Reclyling and extending the life of existing materials should be done, and people should support expanding human rights and environmental protections.

But the sad reality is that those things will not take effect in time to matter for people currently suffering under the abuses of the way the global economy is currently shaped

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lucidlilacdream t1_j1wey93 wrote

and neither will mining in Maine. Mining in Maine will not stop mining overseas. They’ll just extract from both places for more profit, and harm multiple communities.

The only way to possibly stop it is to actually move to more sustainable practices and by pushing for for environmental rights for people.

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Know_more_carry_less t1_j1vzvww wrote

>So you're saying that we should only have mines in countries too poor to say no? Because that's the end point of this kind of thinking.

Strawman Logical Fallacy - “A straw man fallacy occurs when someone takes another person’s argument or point, distorts it or exaggerates it in some kind of extreme way, and then attacks the extreme distortion, as if that is really the claim the first person is making.

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Shh-NotUntilMyCoffee t1_j1w0jtt wrote

"American slaves had it sooooooo much better than other slaves. How can they complain!?"

-This guy, comparing micro-shades of grey.

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respaaaaaj t1_j1w395c wrote

Go fuck yourself. Comparing environmental and worker protects in Aroostook county to places like Burundi where actual slaves are worked to death in mines is nothing at all like that and you should know it.

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WalkerBRiley t1_j1vog12 wrote

You're naive if you think this will lesson that and will benefit maine at all.

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phineas81 t1_j1wci6x wrote

Yes. Everyone here supports child labor and slavery. You got us. Fuckwit.

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respaaaaaj t1_j1wct8w wrote

If you think that rare earth minerals shouldn't be mined in richer countries you are in fact supporting them being mined in poorer countries where abuse is far more wide spread.

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phineas81 t1_j1wg5k4 wrote

  1. That’s not how logic works.

  2. Did you just learn about this problem in school today, and now you think you understand it? It’s a very old, very complex issue. Remind me, since you’re so proud of your opinions, how well Obama’s Conflict Mineral laws worked out for locals in the DRC? Well-intentioned? Yes. Disastrous for local “exploited” labor? Also yes.

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phineas81 t1_j1wir9s wrote

  1. I know it’s unfortunate, but this is what extreme poverty looks like. If you have a solution for extreme poverty, there’s a Nobel Prize in your future. If not, you’re just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. Either way, the answer isn’t making asinine arguments on Reddit.
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respaaaaaj t1_j1wk7nn wrote

How is protecting a status quo not endorsing its consequences?

And I'm not deluded enough to think that global extreme poverty can be solved, but baring a miraculous shift in human nature, one of the very few ways to force changes on a international scale is combining providing less horrible options (I'm not deluded enough to think that something being mined in the US means there are zero consequences) with significant consequences for those who have the option to take them but elect not too.

Situations where you have an incentive to maintain a horrible situation for profit and no alternative to force groups to pursue instead are behind far too many atrocities for me to be okay with saying "it sucks but we can't fix it"

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glasswings t1_j1x4jfa wrote

Extractive industries are one of the big things that poor countries poor.

70 years ago, Japan and West Germany were desperately poor, now they have surpassed us in quality of life. The key is that their economies needed lots of skilled labor and they had the political wisdom to realize skilled labor comes from investing in people: good schools, good health care, government that has to serve the community not just manage it.

70 years ago Russia was in good shape relative to the rest of the. Europe and Japan were reset, China and India still developing, Africa colonized, only the Americas remained as an economic rival.

But so much of Russia was turned into mines and fossil fuels to feed the industrial core of the Soviet Union - such as the area that's now the (pre-war) Russia-Ukraine border. Now, well, Russia has some moderately wealthy places in the west, but a ton of corruption and underdevelopment, especially in places whose economy has been dominated by extraction. And they're literally in a middle of a war trying to conquer the old industrial region, largely motivated by nostalgia for the Soviet days.

Shelling factories is a stupid way to add industrial capacity. Not only because they'll need to be rebuilt, but because the skilled labor to rebuild and staff them is forced to run away and the only way to replace them is to have a functioning society of your own. It's worse than pointless to conquer manufacturing areas.

Conquering natural resources, though, that makes sense.

So, anyway, yes we should mine rather than importing. But we need to enforce a fair deal for the public. And use tariffs to punish multinationals that abuse poor countries.

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respaaaaaj t1_j1x5rr2 wrote

Fuck tariffs, we should be creating options other than abusing poor countries and throwing CEOs in jail for not using those options.

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