Jeffrey J.

Not in BC they haven't.

Product Stewardship

There is always a risk from mining. The Good Lord or Mother Nature if you prefer buried this stuff in the bowels of the Earth for a good reason—not necessarily to enrich us, but to protect us. The bonds required to protect us should mining enterprises melt down are inadequate for major disasters and often to serve to subsidize the shoddy operators at the expense of the good through low deductibles. Even large insurance companies like AIG can go bankrupt; local communities become the insurer of last resort.

We are consuming resources which took millions of years to accumulate in a mere generation or two. We should not sell resources period. We should rent them with the expectation that our children can reclaim them or their equivalent when they need them—product stewardship.

First Nations should hire mining experts to advise them

Like any owner of property with resource(s) of interest, First Nations should hire their own hand-picked mining expert(s) to advise on how best to approach miners who might be interested in developing the resource(s). Learn from experience. The legion of attys in Ottawa supposedly rep'ing aboriginals are far better at enriching themselves at public expense than they are rep'ing the interest of their fiduciaries. How many reports of failed programs does Sheila Fraser have to issue before they're fired for incompetence as any real people surely would be in similar circs?

I say this b/c it was clear to me from the FN submissions on the now done deal Northwest Transmission Line (NTL) that they had NO idea how to negotiate in this area. They wanted to talk about Mother Nature and the wild forest and so on - not the impact of having to use diesel fuel generators to explore mine potential. Most of the submissions I read suggested no expertise or even basic knowledge of mining. They posed no obstacles at all to development, which will most certainly proceed with or w/o them. Better with, in my view, but they'll need some advice from geologists hired specifically for that purpose, and each affected group should hire their own adviser(s) - and pay for them.

Changing The Paradigm...

Well, fundamentally I agree with Jeffrey J. and Grand Chief Edward John. But especially that "deep reform" is needed.

Mining certainly plays an important role in our economy, in many ways, indeed much more important than it deserves... as an economic activity of merit in and of itself Especially when that largely means simply shipping its greater volumes to offshore customers, as part of the global corporate capitalist system, where it is made into finished products that we buy back at huge added values. (It sets up the descent into failure model of even having to ship more raw product, to make up for the differential.)

First, there needs to be a Great Citizen's Assembly round to examine this issue of "national interest" and "sustainability" as applied to mining, forestry etc. Indeed, it needs to go on across our entire economy interface with nature. Which is why we need to finally link up our system of democracy with the economy and its various enterprises... including in the paradigm both the workers there AND the communities in which they function. For there is a shared dependency and important environmental well being co-dependency at this level, between the enterprise AND the workers AND their community, AND the environment upon which it all hinges.

But even more, we need to stop viewing this activity simply from the perspective of digging mammoth holes in the ground, and as speedily as possible shipping its contents offshore. We need to consider linked up with that, how we can "ourselves" process that ore etc ourselves here, into finished products, first for our own peoples, and then as "value added" trade, on an as need, it serves the community and national interest basis. And if "public" investment is require... make it.

Democratic co-operation, sustainability over the long haul, and greater self-reliance upon ourselves for all we need, rather than simply seeing our environment as some kind of "wealth generator" pit for a privileged class, mere jobs for the rest of us... in which we are but hewers of wood etc and drawers of water for a global capitalist market.

We need to look at our economy, our environment and ourselves, all from a more fully rounded perspective in a changed relationship paradigm, and enhancing our own self-reliance and future generations well being. The competitive GDP, casino capitalism, private wealth accumulation model is proving a disastrous failure for all the elements in the piece, working people, communities and the environment. We need a new more co-operative based, rather than "competitive" model. this latter which lies at the root of the problem to both sustainability and social stability.

We are at a place where we need to look at the world, our society, our relationship with nature and our economy through new eyes.

Somehow, we need to estimate

Somehow, we need to estimate the long run environmental impacts of mining operations, take whatever technical steps are required to mitigate those impacts to "acceptable" levels, AND ensure -- from the start -- adequate funding to implement the measures during mine operations AND AFTER (forever?). A serious effort to do this will probably result in much less mining -- but an altogether healthier environment for future generations. And if fewer mines today means a more stable population, great.

How about re-learning how

How about re-learning how to make things for ourselves?
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Then, instead of selling off the resources. make genuine trade with others for resources we don't have but need.

The sale of resources is not an income, but stupidity.

The importation of products from far countries is not "cheaper", but more expensive, because "monetary efficiency" doesn't exist. It is a fraud for the collectivization of economies into the hands of international ruling aristocracies who have inflated the money supplies of certain countries and then set them against others, where monetary living costs are a fraction.

This is not economics, but daylight robbery for exploitation all around.

Nobody talks about the 800 km the huge Diesel trucks would have to go from the Prosperity mine, polluting and breaking up the roads , the citizens have to suffer and pay for, to take the ore to the ports.

Ed Deak.

The fraud of the "green

The fraud of the "green economy"

Ed Deak

===========================================

The full article is available online at
http://www.grist.org/climate-policy/2011-03-24-rio-20-toward-a-new-green-economy-or-a-green-washed-old-economy

Thanks

Jim Thomas
ETC Group (Montreal)

+1 514 2739994

No time for green religionist 'sustainability' bafflegab!

Don't you get it?

There is no time for broad 'sustainability' drum and dancing circles. This is business. Investors, who ultimately drive the mining industry, are interested only in the resource and how viable it is for production. That's the first thing to understand.

The second is that FNs have some power to control whether and how this happens.

Clearly, the both federal and provincial govts wants it to happen: consider the amt of money on various initiatives directed at mining recently. Realize that it will be difficult if not impossible to halt mining development. Green/ancient forest wisdom crap will not assist!

Hire instead experts to determine how best to partner the miners to get the best possible deal. Both the federal and provincial govts are on board with the mining industry. Anyone at cross-purposes should NOT expect much in the way or rep'n from either. So spend the money on experts who WILL.

Casino Capitalism...

"We're good at digging and drilling holes
And then leaving when there is nothing left!"

You got it Freebear.

And all that raw logs and ore going offshore represents good paying industrial jobs going offshore too. Raw material extraction to feed our export dependency, linked with this quick cash mentality of Casino Capitalism, which a few evidence here, is the essence of both our environmental destruction AND our failure to build a more fully rounded and sustainable economic model. Like Fait says, we need to focus on making stuff, such as we actually need, for ourselves... as our national economic development priority.

Which means dealing with these quick cash artists that are part of our ruling class, who think the economy is really just all about rip, rape and run. Up their's with a rubber hose.

You guys are precisely the bozos who brought us this economic Casino Capitalism mess we are in... anti-working class AND environmental destruction, neo-liberal economic bullshit, and free market theory garbage.

Fair trade

I know it is supposed to be free trade but unfortunately the way it is presently set up it requires slaves to see it work.
Why make goods in China that can be easily made at home? China says to citizens only buy goods from Chinese, no one else. It needs to be set up where each country brings something unique to the table instead of the battle of how low can you go.
How cheap can business get its labor for while regulations bite the dust?
First Nations, have a relationship with nature that is built on respect and worship. I trust the First Nations to do the right thing by the planet because the Mining companies only respect money.
If the First Nations decide to go into mining there are plenty of experts for hire. There isn't any green mining that I know of but if there is such a thing let First Nations lead the way.

It isn't a gold rush but a coal rush

http://www.bcjobsandeconomy.gov.bc.ca/2011/03/exports-by-the-numbers/

BC sends record shipments of coal to China to ensure Canadian and American manufactures have plenty of coal to burn without any regulations to get in the way.

"Fools Gold"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_coal
Coal is supposed to be phased out of the environment because of all the harmful affects not doubling up so investors can make record profits. I hate you Walmart and every other monopoly that leads the way to environmental destruction.