With 2024 Updates of the 1872 Mining Law Even though mines – from iron to copper to gold to minerals, such as lithium mines can be so huge that they can be seen from space – and are destructive to land and water and forests – recent proposed legislation in the US aims at expanding mining.
It turns out that, ironically, the transition to a green economy with wind turbines, solar arrays, electric vehicles and battery storage requires an unprecedented increase in mining for lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, tungsten, aluminum, graphite and more.
Here is an archival TUC Radio program on Mining in America. In 1995 I bought a beat up RV, put all my radio equipment in it and took off on a tour of the Western States – In the course of four years I visited mines from Arizona to Washington State and from New Mexico to Montana.
This is my report from Montana, and a conversation with Larry Tuttle in Portland, Oregon, in 1997. He founded the Center for Environmental Equity. They were helping communities to prevent the establishment of mines, or find help with the environmental catastrophes they caused.
DATE: Summer 1997
LOCATION: Portland, Oregon
CREDIT: TUC Radio
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.8MB)
