NationStates Jolt Archive

It is necessary that we have world-wide Mining Industry reform, especially since there are no current laws to limit the actions of industries like Uranium, gold, diamonds, and other metals and ore from effecting surrounding communities, the environment, and our world. I have proposed that all mining industries contained within UN member states go into compliace with certain regulations to prevent the contamination of our food, the birth defects of our unborn children, and the pain and suffering of those effected and debilitated by diseases and illnesses caused by high concentrations of toxins released by mining industrials.

I urge everyone to vote in favor of this resolution so that we can create real positive change for our environment!

The United Socialist States of Horsible :D

Description: Whereas there are limited restrictions and regulations on the mining industry in the status quo and no previous UN resolutions have been adopted to directly effect the mining industry;
And whereas the mining industry is responsible for dirty air, polluted waters, and contamination in our food, animals and plants, and a build-up of toxins in human tissue;
Whereas the mining industry has created environmental injustices to poor citizens living in close proximity to open strip mines and abandoned mines, and forced to work in horrible conditions around the world;
Whereas our unborn children must unknowingly be exposed to large concentrations of mercury, lead, cyanide, and other poisens contained in the food their mothers eat, leading to massive birth defects;
For all these reasons and more, I call upon the United Nations to restrict the mining industry worldwide. This bill will provide the following:

1) This resolution will make the mining industry polluters pay to clean up the pollution resulting from their actions, not government or citizens. If an industry does not clean up their waste they will be subject to fines by their resident state and if the party refuses to be subject to state punishment they will face trial by the United Nations court system. The party is responsible for the clean-up of the water, air, land, and persons injured by the contamination both in the past and into the future.

2) All abandoned mines will be considered toxic sites and actions will be taken to move communities to safer areas. The mines will then be assessed by the appropriate state government for contaminants and effects to the area. All parties responsible for the mine must pay for the clean-up.

3) If in the event there is not a party identified as responsible for the clean-up in sections one and two, then clean-up will be payed for out of a United Nations special collection fund where donations can be made voluntarily by any UN member state.

4) No mining party may emit more then .5 pbb particulates of mercury, 1.0 pbb cyanide, 1.0 pbb sulfur, 1.0 carbon dioxide, .0005 pbb uranium, .0005 pbb plutonium, and .0005 of any other free-radical, cancer causing agent into the atmosphere or the ground water per day through any operation involving extraction, burning, fuel-generation, or any other action in which people or other organisms are affected.

5) All mining industry parties must attain permits to develop certain areas for mining. These permits will be issued no sooner then 6 months after the initial application and every area must be reviewed and then peer-reviewed by respected, non-partisan scientists appointed by the UN member nation or a UN employee to ensure that no endangered species will be threatened, nor will their be any risk to import natural processes. If the proposal effects communities living in the area, then the mining industry must hold an open forum and actively listen to the concerns of the citizens and adjust their plans accordingly.

6) All mining must be done on private lands and not on government lands. Even if the mining industry owns the land it still cannot be permitted to mine until it has recieved the appropriate permit.

7) There will be an education campaign sponsored by the United Nations to inform citizens about the dangers of contaminated food and water from mining industry pollutants.

8) All regulation and enforcement will be done through normal means.

This is a proposal worthy of discussion, but I cannot lend my support to it. Really, you should submit proposals to the forum first so that they can be worked into the best possible shape - it will ensure a better level of support, and not just because it'll deal with your spelling errors.

pbb is parts per billion (and not PbB, blood lead level, or PBB, the pollutant polybrominated biphenyl, as Google suggested). The limits you suggest look stringent but reasonable. However, I'm given to understand (through my limited and probably erroneous research) that radioactive substances in water tend to be measured in pico Curies per litre, airborne lead in milligrams per litre, and so on. I have no doubt these are translatable to pbb, but it might be useful to use the standard form.

6) All mining must be done on private lands and not on government lands.

What about communist nations where all land is state land?

-DP-

-DP-

I'm in favor of your proposed resolution as it has become very clear that the mining industry in my country (as well as in other countries of my region) has been derelict in the environmental issues you've raised.

I suspect that the fines will have to be hefty in order to enact change in the industry, else they will continue to do "business as usual" and just pay the fines. Perhaps mining companies should be given a set of initiatives on sustainable mining - methods and procedures that benefit them and the environment (if such a thing exists). It has been a tremendous success in the lumber industry, and one could hope such ideas and practices could be adapted to mining as well.

Thanks so much for bringing up such a relevant issue.

What about communist nations where all land is state land?

Isn't that what your nations are? Communist? from the restrictions listed, it sure seems that way.

Do you even know what communism is? How are restrictions on industry like these 'communist'?

Apologies for the aggressive tone, but this kind of comment is quite irritating. If you have a criticism, please provide more detail. Justify your statement.

As for our own views, I agree with Rehochipe concerning the appropriate drafting of the proposal, the need for clear standardisation of measurement scales and the issue of state/private land. A nation with fully state-owned land must also be held accountable. Indeed, the resolution is too narrow in its perception of the nature of a country's land ownership and governance. State industry must also be answerable.

Having said that, I support articles 1 and 2 and believe most of the remaining articles canbe made workable with appropriate amendments. However, articles 3 and (to a lesser degree) 7 are problematical given the dependence on funding through the UN.

Nadia Cherneshevsky
Speaker for Energy & Industry

I applaud your efforts to address this topic, however I also feel compelled to point out a need for refinement in points 1,3, &7. re #1: The air pollution control industry relies on fines to compel pollutors to comply; there is no general procedure for stopping them from causing harm (reporting procedures are not standardized across the governing agencies). The only exception is in San Diego, where a plant was shut down after an illness cluster was discovered. As this issue has devastating and long-term effects, I suggest adding the shutting down of mining entities until they fall into compliance. re #'s 3 & 7: A portion of the fines should go to the UN for overseeing these problems if they are to back up the cleaning processes. I WOULD WHOLEHEARTEDLY SUPPORT THIS PROPOSAL subject to these and other revisions mentioned.

I will endorse it when i you my weekly endorsing :)

I imagine that no one here has though about the long term effects of this kind of regulation would be, and to that end, I think I'll walk everyone through the long-term economic impacts.

Understand that the mining industry is one of the core industries responsible for absolutely everything else produced in the modern world. Without mining, you would have no way to build and maintain the infrastructure of a nation. There will be no automobiles, no machine tools, and no computers with which to play internet be-your-own-country role playing games.

With that information in mind, also understand that this proposal seeks to put an additional burden on all mining industries, meaning higher overhead for extraction of any minerals. You can imagine that the individual mining companies aren't going to just absorb this cost - it will be passed on to consumers.

Now, I know that this proposal won't lead to the complete destruction of the mining industry or the fall of mankind. But, adding any unnecessary step to the equation will certailny make it more difficult for John Q. Public to aquire consumable goods. Why should we punish every single mining company for the transgressions of a few?

I would propose that instead of applying an industry-wide standard you instead write a proposal that would deal specifically with harm done to people. That is, instead of putting caps on every one, work to punish the ones that do actual harm. What will it hurt if a lead mine in the middle of nowhere is over the maximum? No, better to focus on actual troublemakers, for a handful of reasons.

First, focusing on violators ensures that only the guilty pay for the crime. Under the current proposal, everyone bears responsibility for problems caused by individual mines, whereas the counterproposal shifts blame where it belongs.

Second, a more direct focus becomes more of a deterrent. If companies know that they alone will be targeted should harm come from their operations they'll be less likely to commit those crimes. Now they have no one else to fall back upon. Ethical and financial responsibility are theirs and theirs alone.

Just something to mull over.

Sincerely yours,
Daniel M. Hillaker
Minister of Foreign Affairs

Fellow UN member states,
Forgive my erroneous error to not first submit my proposal to the UN forum. I am new to this game and therefore am unaware of the protocol. However, I feel that my bill is very strong and the only significant problems I see are that I did not explain the term ppb (parts per billion - which yes, does apply to all forms of pollution emitted. Part meaning be it an atom of any element, compound, or substance in it's smallest form, including free radicals emitted by radioactive materials) Additionally I did not take into consideration communist states where there are no private lands, but I believe that could be dealt with under the final condition, enforcement through normal means. UN officials in charge of permitting would be able to make the changes accordingly. There is still justification for making provisions for those lands which are still considered private however. I wrote this provision in mind of the people who pay taxes to support these lands and their legacy to their children and their sweat and blood should not be sacrificed for the short-term gains of the mining industry. It's not fair to citizens!

Again, we must keep in mind that these mining industries will continue to be allowed to operate, providing jobs, resources, and elements that we all depend upon. However, the people who operate these large industrial mining plants must be restricted from hurting surrounding communities, unborn children, and the neighboring environment. The intent of this bill was to protecting the quality of life for all people, not shut down the industry. The problem with making exceptions for mines that are in remote places is that there are still workers who must suffer from the contaminants. Additionally if you are all familiar with the dynamics of air born and water born pollution you will realize that no matter how far or remote a place may seem to be there is always a city down wind or down stream that will be contaminated by mining waste. The limits are far from over-restrictive and it is the safest possible maximum without causing long term damage to our communities.

Thank you to those who support the bill, and I hope that my explainations will convince those that are still uncertain.

Sincerely,

Erika Horsible
Prime Minister of the United Socialist States of Horsible

<snip>


It would strenghen and improve mining though

By Eck, after an 'ard day down t'pit, tha nay wants to be 'assled by these barmcake antishaft notions. Ere in Bahgum we offen like dig dirty grett 'oles in t'floor fer fun. Tha don't know tha born....

If by "strengthen and improve" you mean "put an undue tax upon mining companies that have committed no wrong and thus force the overhead of an entire industry to rise to an artificial reason" I suppose you're right.

Then again, since "strengthen and improve" doesn't mean that, you would be wrong.

Sincerely yours,
Daniel M. Hillaker
Minister of Foreign Affairs

I think you are missing my entire point Sophia, maybe you don't realize how much wrong the mining industry has done! Like it states in my opening paragraphs of the proposal.. as the mining industry has contaminated our food causing birth defects in the wombs of mothers, poisened our bodies with toxic pollutants, ravaged our air and drinking water, and created environmental injustices to poor people forced to live in the immediate vacinity of the mines.. all these things are definitely bad in my mind! I am just asking the mining industry to pollute less. They can still make a profit and provide valuable goods, while at the same time providing a better working environment for their employees and the surrounding community and environment.

Excuse me, Sophista

Tha don't know tha born....
We would submit that this is due to neural birth defects.

Elsepeth R. Nibbling
Ministry of Being Nice

By Eck, after an 'ard day down t'pit, tha nay wants to be 'assled by these barmcake antishaft notions. Ere in Bahgum we offen like dig dirty grett 'oles in t'floor fer fun. Tha don't know tha born....

Bahgum,
Even if you do like to get dirty and build great holes in the ground for fun, this resolution is looking out for your own well-being. I'm sure you wouldn't want to build up huge medical debts from exposure to cancer causing agents, especially since most of these mining industry folks either don't provide health insurance or they don't give enough coverage. The least these mining companies can do since they don't pay you decent wages is to provide a good quality of life. It is simply an injustice and to not do something about this issue is outrageous. You may still dig your holes, but you can do it safely and not lose your job.
Prime Minister of Horsible

By Eck, after an 'ard day down t'pit, tha nay wants to be 'assled by these barmcake antishaft notions. Ere in Bahgum we offen like dig dirty grett 'oles in t'floor fer fun. Tha don't know tha born....

Bahgum,
Even if you do like to get dirty and build great holes in the ground for fun, this resolution is looking out for your own well-being. I'm sure you wouldn't want to build up huge medical debts from exposure to cancer causing agents, especially since most of these mining industry folks either don't provide health insurance or they don't give enough coverage. The least these mining companies can do since they don't pay you decent wages is to provide a good quality of life. It is simply an injustice and to not do something about this issue is outrageous. You may still dig your holes, but you can do it safely and not lose your job.
Prime Minister of Horsible