Inside a mile-deep open-pit copper mine after a catastrophic landslide - Boing Boing
An unimaginably large landslide occurred in the world's largest copper mine, shutting it down indefinitely:
In short, the events of a few seconds on an April evening in 2013 are beginning to move through the economy, and will reverberate for at least a decade. And who will feel the vibrations, if they know what to feel for? Everyone who uses electricity, telecommunicates, gets their water from a tap, or eats food raised by Big Agriculture. Wires, pipes, and fertilizer: that’s what copper is used for.
I think we get too accustomed to abstract things, like changes in the federal interest rate or the pace of Chinese growth, shifting global markets. It’s good to be reminded that sometimes it's still the earth itself that shakes the world.
Everyone is always caught up with the things going on in their political world, they forget to enjoy the little things/perks in life. One of them being how easily Americans are able to live for the most part compared to the rest of the world. It's amazing the mine is shut down indefinitely and it will be interesting to see if there is a new material that can be used, recycling going to occur, or a new mine found.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, the pictures of the landslide are incredible. I wonder just how drastic the effect will be on our economy or if the claim is a little exaggerated. Certain markets might take a temporary hit, but even if copper is the preferable resource for certain things there are probably temporary substitutes out there that can be used until a more permanent solution is found.
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