tagged w/ mining operations
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Phosphorus is a mineral we don't even think about, but life on this planet depends on it.
Current farming practices cause a depletion from the natural soil, which also require the farmer to buy fertilzer, with mined phosphorus in it, so it can be put back into the soil.
Sustainable farming practices need to be put back into place before we deplete even more minerals from out diets.
There is some evidence that certain farming practices are being done away with by some farmers: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=no-till but this practice needs to really become the standard, rather than the experiment.Phosphorus is a mineral we don't even think about, but life on this planet... more
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Fortunately, this operation has been put on hold because the economy tanked. However...what happens when it picks up again? Are we going to allow corporations, large and small to destroy a part of our planet we know so little about?
From the article:
The company will, of course, leave behind a damaged seafloor—but the environmental costs, too, will be less, Nautilus insists, than those of a comparable mine on land.
In strip-mining a bit less than 30 acres of seafloor, Nautilus will consume hydrothermal chimneys and wipe out the clusters of snails and barnacles, crab and shrimp that are nourished by their sulfide emanations."
This only addresses the immediate sea life. What about all of the other life that depends on this volcanic vent?
I sincerely hope this operation, and others like it never come to fruition. Obviously man has learned so little and could care less, for this this planet that sustains us.
She's going to get pissed off one of these days and scratch at us as we have scratched at her.
And that will be the end of humankind.Fortunately, this operation has been put on hold because the economy tanked.... more
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