Big Picture on Pebble: We're All Complicit.

Core samples from exploratory drilling at the Pebble deposit.In a compelling article on the Yale Environment 360 site, two professors from Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies seek to re-frame the debate surrounding large-scale extraction projects. Professors Oswald Schmitz and T.E. Graedel use the proposed Pebble Mine as an example of what they call the "consumption conundrum": we all use technology--more every day--that relies on minerals dug out of deposits like Pebble, yet most of us fail to come to terms with the ecological implications of those choices. If we spare places like Bristol Bay, they ask,  are we merely exporting the ravaging effects of mining?

The potential for displaced environmental damages means that a policy favoring ecosystem protection at the expense of mining in Bristol Bay should be obligated to consider the global implications of that decision by answering the question: Where else in the world will the mining be done, and what environmental damages will be passed to other parts of the world?

Linking our own behavior and possessions to mining projects like Pebble takes a debate many see in  black-and-white terms into a shades-of-gray realm, for, as they write, "if the ethical environmental position forces mining activity elsewhere, then the rationale for wilderness protection in Bristol Bay becomes murkier". In this narrative, it's not just the big, bad mining companies seeking to exploit a pristine wilderness who are culpable--it's also all of us sitting at the end of that supply chain demanding and consuming things that must be newer, faster, better, etc. Pebble is but one example of what they call the "global linkages that create ethical and social conundrums," but facing up to those linkages, they argue, is essential to "achieving sustainability in a resoruce-limited world." Read the piece.