Today was cold, mainly as a result of last night’s snow which left a wet slush on the sidewalks of the townhouse complex.  I trudged through the slush to dispose of garbage in the common shed from which it is collected at irregular intervals.   Lying in the shed was a yellowed copy of an old paperback with the provocative title Is Sex Necessary?

Truth is the authors’  names first caught my attention:  James Thurber & E.B. White.  They wrote the book in 1929 because, as EBW says in the 1950 reprint:

Thurber and I were neither more, nor less, interested in the subject of love and marriage than anybody else of our age in that era.  I recall that we were both profoundly interested in earning a living, and I think we somehow managed, simultaneously, to arrive at the conclusion that the heavy writers had got sex down and were breaking its arm.  We were determined that sex should retain its high spirits.  So we decided to spoof the medical books and, incidentally, to have a quick look at love and passion.

Because it was cold outside, I sat beside the heater and read the book.  It is topical.  Consider this paragraph:

There is an erroneous impression current nowadays the sex is everything.  It is similar to the psychological delusion common during the war years [i.e., the years of the First World War of 1919-1918] that the war would never end.  Man is inclined to exaggerate the immensity of his chief preoccupations.  Thus when the Word War was in progress, men convinced themselves that there would never be anything else but war.  Then the war ended, and Man was left, as it were, stranded.  Used to tremendous preoccupation, he had to have another.  He turned to sex, out of sheer momentum, and overestimated its importance as he had magnified the immensity of war. 

I cannot but ask: we now have a tremendous preoccupation with both war and sex—have we advanced or just broadened our scope? 

We still struggle with terms.  Consider:

One reason a man has trouble telling love from passion is because neither term has been clearly defined.  Even after one has experienced love, one finds difficulty defining it.  Likewise, one may define it and then have all kinds of trouble experiencing it, because, once having defined it, one is in too pompous a frame of mind ever again to submit to its sweet illusion.

Who today would have the temerity to call sex a sweet illusion? 

The day passed pleasantly enough in the company of these two geniuses from an age past.  I do not know if you can still get the book.  But if you can, get it, so that you are equipped for a cold, slushy day, and do not want to think about mining in preference to sex.

The quantity of information that is needed to make rationale mining investment decisions is immense.   It is near impossible to read all the daily emails or go to all the conferences and meetings on mining that have as their ultimate gold-goal the provision of advice to help you make profitable mining investment decisions.  Now there is one more source of information; and I venture that it is a good and useful one.

I refer to a new feature on InfoMine called Featured Mining Investment Opportunities.  (In accordance with some obscure law, I am required, at this point, to tell of my relationship to InfoMine.  First, they have not paid me to write what follows; nor have the offered any inducements to promote me to promote them.  They do, on occasion, copy postings from this blog on their front pages—but that is only when I am not, in their opinion, offending anyone.  I emphasize that I am an independent, opinionated old blogger; take it or leave it.)

There are two parts to this new feature. 

The first is called Financials.  Besides the name of the listed mining company, are what are titled Investment Details.  Here you will find a link to their official website (I would prefer links to their unofficial website—may be more scurrilous.)   You will also find the stock exchange on which the company is listed; the currency they deal in; current share price; volume; percent change of share price; and 52-week highs and lows. 

A second page is called Commodity Exposure.  Here are listed the region in which they mine and the commodities they mine.  Thus if you are a gold bug and read MineWeb and their endless stream of predictions that the price of gold will rise, here you can find the companies in which to invest in the hope they will make you rich mining gold.   I was surprised by how few mine uranium–I cannot but believe that is more valuable than gold.  For with uranium you can make energy; whereas gold merely sits idle in a vault making you believe you can buy carrots & guns with the bars in the event of an economic melt-down.  

The list of companies is not the entire universe of mining companies.  That is why you will find only one company mining coal, another useful product, in my simple view of things.  There is room to expand the companies list; at least include more coal mining companies. 

There is no indication of why some companies are listed and some are not.  I am informed that only ”featured” companies are listed; and a featured/listed company apparently pays InfoMine to be featured/listed.  I am not sure if that makes them a better investment than an unfeatured/unlisted company.  You decide on the basis of your opinion about the merits of company profits going to featuring/listing as compared to dividends. 

The companies are not listed alphabetically.  So you can have fun stumbling your way down the list to come across surprises you had not previously heard of.  Then more fun is to click on the link to enjoy the company description.  Some florid writing to be found.  At random I clicked on one to read this:

Malbex Resources Inc.(TSX-V:MBG) is a Canadian gold exploration company led by experienced management and directors, including several former executives and directors of Aurelian Resources Inc. Malbex holds an indirect 100% interest in three exploration projects in Argentina’s El Indio Gold Belt, which hosts over 40 million ounces of gold in past production and current reserves. Two of the projects are in close proximity to Barrick’s Veladero and Pascua-Lama gold deposits, while Del Carmen, the Company’s flagship project, is about 75 km to the south, less than 30 km to the southeast from the former El Indio-Tambo mine. Malbex operates in the pro-mining province of San Juan, which boasts three operating gold-silver mines (Veladero – Barrick, Gualcamayo – Yamana Gold Inc., and Casposo – Troy Resources NL), one major development stage mining project (Pascua-Lama – Barrick) and widespread exploration activity.

This company had a 52-week high share price of 98 cents, a 52-week low of 22 cents, and is currently priced at 42 cents.  Their region of operations (exploration) is Oceania (where is that?) and their exposure is gold and silver.   Must take a look at them in more detail.  If you profit from their shares, let me know.   I emphasize this was a random click: I do not promote them, nor know anything more about them than I get from this new InfoMine feature. 

Considering how difficult it is to keep abreast of mining investment opportunities, this new feature is to be welcomed.  I recommend giving it a try.  If you have suggestions to improve it, email them to me and I will forward them on  to the folk who are compiling it. 

Growing up in South Africa, we ate a great deal of mutton.  It was cheap & available.  I knew nothing of steak and salmon until I got to Vancouver, where salmon is cheap & available.  Yet I still long for the gamey taste of mutton.  I found it once in Mexican Hat in the Navajo region of New Mexico and Colorado.  But no luck here in Vancouver.  Although the local ethnic food-court down the road serves a fine lamb cutlet with rice, cooked by the Greek owners.   Enjoying a good plate of rice and lamb yesterday, I wondered about New Zealand mining.

A quick search revealed that there is a great deal of controversy in New Zealand over mining.  Let us take a further look as the place is small, green, and whatever they decide may portend the future for the rest of us.  First I found the Straterra, Natural Resources of New Zealand site.   I am always suspicious when the writing is convoluted and inept as in this introductory statement:

Straterra is an incorporated society offering a collective voice for the NZ minerals and mining sector, from small firms to large enterprises. Our membership represents 84% by value of New Zealand’s mineral production (except for oil & gas and geothermal) and a large percentage of the exploration effort.  Straterra works closely with the petroleum sector, and has links to geothermal.  Launched in 2008 at the annual conference of the NZ Branch of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM), Straterra now has three full-time staff working from a well appointed office with street-front presence in the Wellington CBD.   We are committed to the Government’s agenda for Green Growth, which includes environmental and social responsibility, and to the sector making an economic contribution to NZ, and to the NZ brand.  Key issues facing the resource sector in New Zealand are access to land for exploration, and the conditions under which access is allowed. Straterra participates in government policy processes, and carries out advocacy and other functions, including government relations.   Straterra is building membership and an industry hub in Wellington providing in-house policy expertise and a meeting venue in the Capital for members.  We believe in engaging with others in a fair, reasonable and transparent way, to promote informed debate on resource sector issues.

No doubt I will never be invited to the “well appointed office with street-front presence.”   Where do they come up with this stuff?

They folk at Straterra are serious.  This is the basis of their concerns:

Mining is also an essential industry. Minerals are integral to every aspect of our lives. They are a direct or indirect component of everything New Zealanders consume, whether produced locally or sourced from abroad. As the saying goes – “if you haven’t grown it, you have to dig it!”   Many mines in New Zealand are quarries, and most of these produce aggregates for roading and construction.   One would be excused for thinking that mining in NZ should be celebrated and encouraged, as integral to our way of life in the 21^st Century, as benefiting the economy and society, and carried out in an environmentally responsible way.   Sadly, it is increasingly the case that the resource debate in New Zealand is mired in misinformation.   A campaign is underway against: petroleum, coal and lignite; and minerals and energy development in sensitive areas, such as the oceans, and public conservation land.

Is New Zealand so small that they have to mine in sensitive areas like the oceans and on public conservation land?

Straterra seems to have gotten into a nasty debate with Green MP Julie Anne Genter.  See this link for an interchange that would be hilarious and worthy of Gilbert & Sullivan were it not real.   Bernie Napp, a senior policy analyst with Straterra writes to the honorable MP.

I would like to correct Green MP Julie Anne Center (sic) on her bizarre claim that no mining town in New Zealand has ever enjoyed benefits (Mataura split on mining benefits, January 25).    In 2010 the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research report- ed that the median wage for a mining employee, including in oil and gas, was $57,320 in 2008, compared to the New Zealand median of $33,530.  It is wrong to use Waihi as an example of a mining town because people in that industry in Waihi also live at Waihi Beach, Katikati and elsewhere.   Consider also the benefits to users of resources.  As matters stand, New Zealand gas and coal are essential inputs into the dairy, wood and timber processing, horticulture and other industries. Indeed, if there were no energy and minerals, whether imported into or produced in New Zealand, there would be no hospitals, no transport, no schools, no electricity, no food, no clothing, no phones.   Seen this way, the benefits of mining to society are infinite. 

For Mr Napp to imply that Waihi Beach and Katikati could be considered mining towns was a bit of a stretch when the obvious reason why some miners may choose to live in those places is because they would prefer not live in the actual mining town of Waihi. I challenge Mr Napp to name some prosperous New Zealand towns that have achieved average to above prosperity directly through mining coal or lignite.  Mr Napp also tried to mislead us by exaggerating the incomes that could be expected from lignite mining by including those from the much wealthier gas and oil industries.

New Zealand is a well-endowed country, with potentially large quantities of gold, coal, lignite, ironsands, phosphate and petroleum. The mining, quarrying and petroleum sectors already make up between eight and 10 per cent of New Zealand’s export earnings and contribute 1.1 per cent to New Zealand’s GDP52. The sectors’ contribution to GDP could easily be increased to over three per cent within the next 10 years, with the contribution to export earnings reaching well past 10 per cent. This increase would grow New Zealand’s economy, raise labour productivity and help ensure New Zealanders’ aspirations can be realised.

On the right-hand side of this posting is my blog-roll.  Here I list all the blogs that I have found that are true blogs or reasonable facsimiles of a blog about mining.  I have just added a new one to the list.  It is called Beyond Borders.  It is run by Barrick and subtitled Responsible Mining At Barrick Gold Corporation. 

You may protest that this is not a blog as it is not a personal biographical log of thinkings & doings.  Certainly it does not have the spark of individuality and personality of a blog composed by a cranky blogger.  Nevertheless, it does have a blog look and feel and features well-written articles you may enjoy reading if you follow the many aspects of mining. 

The article that caught my attention via a Google search of blogs (there is a way to do that) is about the impact studies a mining company has to undertake before opening a mine.   Here is some of what they say:

Permitting a new mine has become a more complex process, as the scale of projects grows and regulatory standards become more stringent. At the same time, the process has also become more inclusive and transparent and involves significantly more stakeholders.

As Barrick’s projects grow in scope, so too do its ESIAs, which can be thousands of pages long and encompass data about dozens of communities. Depending on the complexity of the project, the cost of completing an ESIA can range from $5 million to $10 million and can take anywhere from two to four years to complete. “In the past, we used to basically build a mill, an administrative building, an equipment-storage facility and then we’d mine the pit,” Riehm says. “Today, it’s not unusual for a project to include a power plant, pipelines, well fields and ports — and you’ve got to get approvals and permits for all of them.”

Building projects in developing countries with little or no history of mining is another challenge. This can mean dealing with weaker government institutions, regulators who are new to mining and even corruption. Barrick employees who are involved in permitting are expected to follow the company’s Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, and unethical practices are not tolerated.

To keep things balanced, I also add a link on my blog roll to Mining Injustice Solidarity Network.  Afterall, it is interesting to read all sides of the story and to see how different minds view the same event, mine, or intentions.   I confess my mind rolls when I read the follow:

“This report reveals serious project design and implementation flaws of Barrick’s Pascua Lama Project, making this project non-compliant with the principles and minimum social and environmental standards established by the Equator Principles. This conclusion is based on the analysis of a number of issues and dimensions of both the Pascua Lama and adjacent Veladero projects, which are intricately related, including Barrick’s impacts and problems related to:

• Glaciers
• Waterways
• Indigenous rights
• Wetland systems (vegas systems)
• Project design (such as faults in rock pile design and execution)
• Non-compliance of, and attack on, environmental legislation
• Transparency and disclosure
• Corporate culture
• And multiple other issues.”

As Equator Principle signatory banks, says CEDHA and the adhering institutions, including the global network Banktrack and the Accountability Project of the United States, due to the various impacts sited in this report, and for Barrick’s systemic irresponsible corporate culture evidenced by accidents such as the recent rock pile collapse at the Veladero project, Barrick Gold fails to comply with the Equator Principles, and as such, EDC and Eximbank should stay away from Pascua Lama.

Which perspective is one to believe?  Whose opinion counts more?  Who has the truth on there side?

Maybe there is no truth in the sense of a Germanic Grundnorm, a perfect truth floating around somewhere out there in space just waiting for us to discern it, if only we could apply our limited logic and intellect to the situation.   Maybe it is all relative.  Maybe it is all a game of subjectivity.

As my six-year old grandson puts it: “Grandpa, everything that is written is just what old men thought.  Is that why you are a pagan?”   Try explaining that away to a six-year old as his religious teachers watch him.  And I buy him books on Charles Darwin.  In this instance, I took him to see Hugo, that movie with 11 Oscar nominations. 

Back to the grundnorm issue.  Here is how one blogger describes it:

In the hierarchy of norms which constitute the law, the validity of a norm is to be derived from other norms standing behind it and imparting validity to it. In a legal order the hierarchy of norms can be traced back to an initial, basic or fundamental norm on which the validity of the others ultimately rests. This basic or fundamental norm is called the Grundnorm. Kelson distinguished the Grundnorm from the constitution by statin that the Grundnorm only imparts validity to the constitution and all other norms derived from it, but does not dictate its content. The function of the Grundnorm is to validate the rest of the legal system. There must not be a total disregard of the Grundnorm also there need not be universal adherence to it. When a Grundnorm fails for a minimum support other propositions that obtain support will replace it. This is the cause of revolution in the field of law.

I once, with high marks, passed a course in Jurisprudence (Legal Philosophy.)  I was fascinated by the concept of a grundnorm, for our professor said that while we do not know what it is, we do know that apartheid, which was then the law of South Africa, is wrong.   Is it possible today to find, identify, define, establish a mining grundnorm that will help us wade through the two very different blog I have just added to my blog-roll? 

Are the Equator Principles a grundnorm?   And who is to judge?  The banks lending money to Barrick?   A blogger here, a blogger there?   A local who fears for his water?   An Ombudsman in New York?

My challenge to those who write about mining, responsible development, sustainable action, and all those buzz-words that bore the pages of cheap magazines and repetitive blogs:  set out on a new path and find the grundnorm of mining and say how it should be enforced. 

A short note to share with you a site that I came across today.  Here is the link to the procedings of the First International Seminar on Social Responsibility in Mining held in Santiago, Chile in October 2011.  I have not had time to download and look at all of the PowerPoint presentations.  Those I did look at leave me wanting to go back and look at more, for there were many interesting topics adressed.  Although as always it boils down to getting the locals on your side by whatever reasonable and ethical means you can.   Factor in the expense as part of the cost of doing buisiness.  

Although as Malcomb Scoble of the University of British Columbia concludes in a presentation:

• There is a vast improvement on human rights during the past ten years.  However reality on the ground has not kept pace with rhetoric.  Respect for human rights and protection of vulnerable groups has a long way to go.  
• Most host countries fail to fulfill their obligations under international law to protect human rights.
• Evidence and allegations of complicity in human rights abuses confirm taht voluntary initiatives alone are inadequate.
• Due to failures of host governments and companies, there is a need for an accountability mechanism.

Quite what is practical as regards setting up and running an accountablity mechanism is left unanswered.  I can think of none other than a United Nations mandate allowing access to the International Court of Justice for aggrieved parties. 

Another source of papers and presentations on a similar theme is the 2009 York University, Toronto seminar on Rethinking Extractive Industry; Regulation, Dispossession and Emerging Claims.  Here is the link where you can download most of the papers.  Here is one abstract I found interesting considering current events:

All U.S. presidents since Nixon, have promised Americans energy independence. Meanwhile, because of its profligate waste of energy, the U.S. gets steadily less oil independent. In contrast, Canadian Prime Ministers never talk about Canadian energy independence or security, and enthusiastically support Canada’s satellite role in helping to ensure U.S. energy security. The focus on exports to the U.S. means that Canada opens its own citizens to energy insecurity by importing half the oil used here. Canada gets a higher percentage of its oil imports from OPEC countries than the U.S., a fact you would never know from living in Canada. In a country where the dominant season is winter, energy security matters. Cuts in supplies could literally mean Canadians freezing in the dark. The irony is that American Presidents promise energy independence, but fail to do much about it, while Canadian Prime Ministers do not talk about it, but could easily achieve it. Canada exports more energy than it consumes. The main U.S. choice on energy independence is to go really green and substantially cut fossil fuel consumption, or use aggressive tactics, including war, to get oil from under other peoples’ sands. It’s a choice of going green and independent, versus empire and dependence. Canada’s main security choice is to gain energy independence so it can go green, or spew lots of greenhouse gases by providing guaranteed levels of energy exports to the U.S., and acting as deputy sheriff to U.S. adventures abroad over oil. This paper explores the themes of energy independence and dependence in Canada and the U.S. within the context of the triple crisis of peak oil, energy insecurity, and the looming threat of climate change catastrophe.

Not sure if this is all still true in 2012.  Here is another that gives some reason to be hopeful—although with EKATI up for sale, this too might be dated.

The emergence of formal corporate-community agreements, often termed Impact and Benefit Agreements (IBAs), in the Canadian mining sector has been read by many as a positive innovation. Negotiated directly between resource developers and Aboriginal communities with limited state interference, IBAs serve to manage impacts associated with a mine project and deliver tangible benefits to local communities.  Notwithstanding their increasing use and potential significance, limited systematic analysis has been undertaken to determine whether they are meeting their intended aims. This paper reports on the effectiveness of a number of IBAs negotiated in support of three diamond mines in Northwest Territories, drawing on evidence from time-series data, key informant interviews, and focus group meetings in Yellowknife and Dettah, NWT, and Kugluktuk, NU. While some deficiencies were apparent, the IBAs were generally found to be meeting their objectives. Nevertheless, little is known about their long-term efficacy and the degree to which IBAs are able to address long-standing concerns associated with hinterland resource extraction beyond their agreement-specific objectives. Hence, as a complementary task, this paper offers: a protocol for enabling community-centric long term socio-economic conditions monitoring; and a conceptual model of an ideal IBA that can meet the explicit and even implicit expectations of Aboriginal communities currently faced with poverty and underdevelopment, vastly increased mineral exploration within their traditional territories, and ongoing land claim negotiations with the crown.

For when the mine is gone, it is gone, and no agreement can replace the money the local enjoyed while there was a mine. 

The original is in Portuguese, for the Quadrilatero Ferrifero is in Brazil.  A quaint translation is provided on pages opposite the original language.  I quote the translation below without edit. 

In an introduction by Angelo Machado of the Biodiversity Foundation, we find this fascinating admission:

My personal opinion, very negative towards the mining companies in the beginning has completely changed, and for that it was very important a trip I have made to the Carajas Iron Ore Mine that belong to Vale, in the state of Para.  From the aircraft window I was able to see the fully devastated areas that surround the great forest in which the open pit mine is, and that looks like a deep crater.  It then came to my mind that the ore of that “crater” supply the resources to protect that forest that features an enormous diversity. 

He goes through many such admissions of personal change of mind about mining.  The basis of his change of mind and heart is obviously the fact that before mining the forest were hunted and cut to smithereens.  With the coming of mining, reclamation was undertaken and the forest diversity restored.  He concludes the introduction on this high note:

From the historic and panoramic view of the relationship between the mining companies and the environmentalist movement, it is clear that the time of great conflict is over, mainly because most of the mining companies operate in environmentally-friendly way.  Then again, the environmentalist movements has got more mature and prone to the dialogs.  On the other hand, the public image of the mining companies remains negative, mainly regarding the media that, encouraged by the radical NGOs or the ignorance of the society, place the serious companies on the same baseline as they place the omissive and/or neglecting companies regarding the environmental issues.

I love the phrase “serious companies on the same baseline as the omissive and/or neglecting companies.”   Sadly it is the omissive & neglecting companies that spoil it for the serious companies and make it necessary for the environmentalist to be ever vigilant.   

The book is expensively produced: glossy pages; color illustrations, fine graphics, and skilled layout.  I must note Sanakan Firmino for Design Grafico (not sure if this is a person or company.) 

The book is intended to inform and educate the otherwise mining-ignorant of mining in Brazil.  Thus we have chapters on the history of mining world-wide, the history of mining in Brazil, the economic benefits of mining in Brazil, and the interrelationship of society, the environment, and mining. 

Here is part of what is written on tailings dams—as good an example as any of the approach and level of detail of the rest of the book. 

One of the methods used to prevent and mitigate the silting of the downstream rivers in the mining areas is the construction of scrap dams.  In most cases, the basic objective of a scrap dam is to hold the scraps and effluents to preserve the structure and functionality of the affected fluvial system.  So, the operation of a mine will cause the least possible environmental impact on its surrounding community.  The main short-term and long-term environmental-related problems associated with the tailings dams include the following;

• Surface and underground water pollution during its operation and after shutdown
• Dam stability and safety
• The dust produced in the sand beach
• Visual impact
• Deforestation

The stability of a dam is crucial for the permanent storage of the liquid effluents and solid scraps originating from the mining process work.  The main factors that influence the stability of a dam are its height and slope, the geotechnical characteristics of the dam foundation and damming construction materials, besides the hydrology and seismic characteristics of the region.

We must laud the authors for their work.  We must laud those who financed the book.  It is a great attempt to put mining in Brazil in a good light.  I wonder if this book has or will succeed in that undertaking.  Maybe we need similar efforts by the oil sands folk, the uranium mines, the copper people of Arizona, and the universities of Peru and Chile. 

It is difficult to discern who the publisher is. Where a normal book lists the publisher, I find only Belo Horizonte.  Isn’t that a town in Brazil, not a publisher?  All I could find is the universal ISBN number which is 978-85-64748-00-2.  All the authors work at an organization listed as CNPq, if that helps.  I could not find the book on Amazon.com.   I loaned the book from a friend, who got it as a gift.  Email me and I will forward the email to him if you seek the book.

PS.  A few thoughts on words and their meaning.  Omissive is a new word to me; but a good word to describe a negligent as compared to a serious mining company.  Another new word that I came across this weekend while listening to an obscure opera is peccant.  Peccant means guilty of a moral offence.  It comes from the Latin peccare = to err or to offend.  May we brand an ommisve mining company a peccant mining company? 

Note that in the original Portuguese of the book that I write of here, serious and omisive and/or negligent are translations of seria e as omissas e/or negligentes.  A scrap dam is the transation of barragens.  Tailings dam is a translation of barragens de rejeitos.   I concede that a proper translation would probably be a reject dam with tailings being mining rejects.   Not a bad set of words.

Finally, from my youth, the phrase gadding about.  This means to mess around, to play, to indulge in frivolous pass-times. Just the kind of thing that irresponsible miners do.  Thus we coin a new phrase: omissive, peccant miners gadding about.  Instead of creating wealth and restoring past omissions and getting down to serious responsible, sustainable development. 

We despair of the terminology of vituperation & laudation.  Particularly as applied to mining.

PS.  A few days after this posting, one of the authors commented as below on the writign, trnaslating, and availability of the book.  An email arrived telling me there is a possibility of gettign copies through Sistema FIEMG.

This is a new-old opera.  Maybe like most opera in far-off days:  grab the best tunes; add some great singers; paint gaudy scenery; throw in a convoluted story; and let the combination do the rest to entertain the audience. 

Here is why I found this production enchanting:

Great Music.  The music is mostly arias borrowed from Handel, Vivaldi, and Rameau operas.  They are three greats in opera from the Baroque, a time when things were really getting going in opera.  I have as many of Handel and Vivaldi’s operas on CD and DVD as I can lay my hands on.  I love the clean, sparse music, that is so simple in its complexity.  This is music with tunes, rhythms, and loud & soft noises.  But is it free of that cloying sweetness & lushness of so much that followed.

A Convoluted Story.  The four lovers from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, going off on honeymoon, find themselves stranded on the island of the Tempest.  Thus we have ample opportunity for distracted and misdirected lovers to run around singing.  We have Ariel emulating Puck getting everything mixed and muddled.  We have a pompous Prospero, surely one of the less-nice characters of the classical literature, lording it over all.  And to boot we get Neptune, sung by Placido Domingo himself, coming out of the sea to put things aright when it all gets too convoluted to solve by reason or logic. 

Great Singers.  Joyce DiDenato stole the show as far as I am concerned.  As the witch of the island, she is a mother of Caliban, and suffers for it.  A close second for best is Danielle de Niese as Ariel.  Then the countertenors Daniels and Costanzo add a rare sound to the present.  They are all so good, at least so entertaining & enchanting, that it is almost unfair to single out one or the other.

Great Scenes.  Surely the prize for the loudest and noisiest scene in opera now goes to Neptune as he is visited by Ariel?  I nominate Caliban’s wish (or is it dream) scene as the most ghoulishly erotic scene in opera.  And the scene where Sycorax grieve over Caliban’s first lost love (DiDenato singing) must surely rise to one of the most emotional mother-son scenes ever. 

Gaudy Scenery.  Not pretty or beautiful.  Not sophisticated or even clever.  But gaudy and fun.  Many of us had a quiet laugh at some of the special effects.

I hope I have made my case: this is not an opera for the sophisticated or demanding.  This is an opera for those who love opera for what it truly is: music that is good to the ear & brain; singing that stuns & overwhelms; a story to keep you entertained, not educated; and a damn good production that entertains, enthrals, and enchants for a few hours of pleasure.

A group of professors sat around a table in a glass-clad building and wondered why they are not involved in oil sands mining. They talked of getting funding for a new professorial chair—why does the oil sands industry not sponsor a chair at our university?  They bemoaned the fact that none of their students wants to go and work at the oil sands mines.

“They know more of South America and want to go there, more than they know of Alberta, or want to go there,” one professor exclaimed.

“That’s because it is a lot more fun to go to Peru than to go to Fort McMurray,” was the tart reply.

“But I take my geology students to the oil sands every summer,” one distraught professor declared.  “It’s just that the parents tell them not to work in a dirty industry.”

“I dunno,” said a gray-haired old pedagogue, “One of my student persuaded her parents to fly over the oil sands mines when she wanted a job there and her mother objected.  Her mother saw the place and blessed it as a fit place for her daughter to work.”

“Why doesn’t the oil sands industry put out requests for research proposals?” groused another whose hair is also gray.

“Because they need ideas from academics,” was the reply.  “You cannot expect academics to be treated like consultants; and sit and wait for the request for proposals.  Surely academics are paid enough to think up new ideas?”

Fact is there was a great deal of confused thinking around that table.  I realized for the first time that professors are more interested in getting students and getting jobs for their students than they are interested in getting new ideas and doing fundamental research stemming from their own original thinking. 

The point is that there is no shortage of money for oil sands research.  There is no shortage of jobs in the oil sands industry.  There is a great shortage of new ideas and an even greater shortage of Canadian graduates who want to go to Fort McMurray to work.  And a shortage of academics willing and wanting to get on a plane to fly to Fort McMurrayto see what they could contribute to the industry.

I have spent the past four years happily going to Fort McMurray in all seasons.  In summer it is green & warm, soft & gentle.  In winter it is white & cold, but the brilliant sun on the trees is sparkling & invigorating.  I love the place and think of it as a third home (YVR first; John Wayne Airport second; YMM third.)

But why won’t BC students and professors go there?  My theory is that they are incredibly spoilt.  They live in the lap of luxury & beauty in YVR.  They are well-funded by a generous government.  Damn it!  The professors have tenure; the graduates have jobs in a vital city by the sea.

Is there any way out?  I think not.   As long as the British Columbia economy is good; as long as there are direct flights from Vancouver to Fort McMurray; as long as there are taxpayer-funded sine-cures; why move? 

They are lucky.  In 1983, twenty-percent of the professional engineer in British Columbia were out of work.  I happily move to Leavenworth, Washington to work and get a salary.  What spoilt  kid would do that today? 

Times have changed and, in mining, things are improved.  I hope it stays that way so that the young and professors can stay as they are: myopic, spoilt, unwilling to move, demanding of society, jealous of their privileges, and able to spend a whole Friday pm blathering about entitlement.

Last year, our Minerals Make Life program raised awareness about the contribution of minerals to economic growth, innovation and national security in America. Thanks to these efforts, we saw the momentum around the minerals conversation grow in Washington and throughout the country.

• In this video, Carol Raulston, senior vice president of communications for the National Mining Association, provides a recap of key findings and milestones from 2011 that will help enhance our efforts advocating for smart mining in 2012, including:
• Reports by the U.S. Department of Defense and PricewaterhouseCoopers that revealed the importance of a steady minerals supply to the U.S. military and hi-tech and automotive sectors, among others;
• The introduction of the “Critical Minerals Policy Act of 2011” by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), aiming for an in-depth analysis of our nation’s minerals needs and the ability to meet those needs domestically; and
• The passage of a similar bill by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), the “National Strategic and Critical Minerals Policy Act of 2011,” which received bipartisan approval in the House Committee on Natural Resources in June 2011.

As we begin the new year, we must remain focused on advocating sound policies that promote a strong U.S. minerals mining sector and improve our economy. We hope you will support our efforts by sharing this video with your I Think Mining readers.

The news wires are abuzz with the announcement that Obama has caved into his party’s environmental wing and killed the Keystone pipeline that would have carried Canadian oil to the refineries along the gulf coast.  Obama spluttered some words about reducing car fuel consumption as a way of making up for the jobs the pipeline would have generated.  Let us face it: Obama has caved to the environmentalist who threatened to withdraw their support if he did not kill the pipeline.  One of those fancy magazines that I read a while ago had an article by Bill McKibben spelling out the full threat.   Here is one report on his role:

On November 6, 2011, Bill McKibben arrived at Washington, D.C.’s, Lafayette Park to protest the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, designed to carry oil 1,700 miles from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. McKibben, a Vermont writer and environmentalist, had been one of 1,252 people arrested in front of the White House in August and September, protesting the same pipeline. He’d spent two nights in the district’s Central Cell Block, and now was back with thousands more people and a bold new plan.

Here is McKibben’s response to the announcement;

“Assuming that what we’re hearing is true, this isn’t just the right call, it’s the brave call. The knock on Barack Obama from many quarters has been that he’s too conciliatory. But here, in the face of a naked political threat from Big Oil to exact ‘huge political consequences,’ he’s stood up strong. This is a victory for Americans who testified in record numbers, and who demanded that science get the hearing usually reserved for big money.   We’re well aware that the fossil fuel lobby won’t give up easily. They have control of Congress. But as the year goes on, we’ll try to break some of that hammerlock, both so that environmental review can go forward, and so that we can stop wasting taxpayer money on subsidies and handouts to the industry. The action starts mid-day Tuesday on Capitol Hill, when 500 referees will blow the whistle on Big Oil’s attempts to corrupt the Congress.” 

Recently I spent a month in California.  The Republicans amongst my friends were convinced that if the USA just pulled out enough of its own natural gas, they would not need to import oil for the next three hundred years—if only Obama would let them frac the ground and pull out the gas.  Now these are Orange County Republicans, so I have no reason to dispute their opinions—or do I?

The point is that as good Republicans they were scathing of socialistic Canada and their pride was offended by the thought that they would have to rely on Canadian oil to fuel their big SUVs.   So they were not too worried about the pipeline going through.  “Let them sell the stuff to China,” was one profound opinion.   And that is probably just what will happen.

Another side of the issue: this morning I was interviewed by one of those firms that makes a living predicting a terrible upcoming shortage of workers in the Canadian mining industry.  They get government funds to put out gloomy report after gloomy report predicting a near-collapse of Canadian mining unless we…….well you can guess the rest.  It includes spending more Canadian government money, whatever it is. 

How long will it be before somebody comes out and tells us that killing the Keystone pipeline is a blessing for Canadian mining companies—it will lessen the demand for Canadian oil sands mining and hence the demand for so many non-existant workers.  Not unemployment understand; just that fewer of those precious, non-existant workers will not be required to make oil to send to the USA.   

When I mentioned to him that with so many unemployed workers in the USA, aka not at work building a pipeline, he breathed a sigh of fear.  “Don’t need to be importing workers from the USA now, do we?”

So maybe it will all work out as McKibben hopes: Obama is re-elected; SUVs go away; we all take up baking for each other as a profession; people do not move from the place they are born, but write poems about clear ponds;  the wives weave sack-cloth like Penelope of old; and maybe the Chinese economy bursts its bubble, reducing the need for oil from Canada piped via Vancouver. 

I somehow doubt this.  We are not all rich on popular but impractical books.  We cannot all afford to go to protest to be thrown in jail.  Most of us want a warm house, a dependable car, an occasional trip in an plane to visit grandkids, and gainful employment.   And the Chinese are no different, even though they censor such thoughts. 

In some ways, I hope that Obama’s silly decision will be to the benefit of the Canadian economy: build our own refineries, pipelines, and distributions systems.   I suspect this decision will lessen rather than enhance Obama’s re-election progress.  He will just have to leave the White House and go write books with McKibben and Gore.   Is the prospect that Romney might win an approve the pipeline one of the reasons, Obama changed his previous decision to delay a decision until after the election?  I read it was the Republicans who forced his hand, and they stand to benefit.

Whatever, this is a fantastic example of politics affecting mining.  And the story will continue to unfold.

PS.  Here is a link to the best blog posting on the issue that I came across in browsing the web on this issue.  It tells of a worker, a tradeunion worker, opposing the pipeline.  He captures the dilemmas and conflict perfectly.  You may not agree with him; but it is worth reading.  Here is part of what he writes and concludes; although I cannot see how his plea for full employment is logically consistent with the rest of his argument:

That’s where I first learned something about working on pipelines.  I worked building the Texas-Eastern pipeline as it wound its way through the rolling hills of Central Pennsylvania.  Small teams of operating engineers, pipefitters, and laborers traveled across the state doing work we enjoyed and that we understood to be useful and important.  (We didn’t know then what we know now.)  It was a great job and I was a member of a great union, Laborer’s Local 158.  We formed friendships and shared a solidarity that touched us all deeply.

On another job building a railroad bridge across the Susquehanna river, a buddy of mine got fired by a hubris-filled college kid.  (The kid’s dad owned the construction company so the kid had been made chief foreman over all laborers.)  We struck and shut the job down.  The operating engineers, carpenters and ironworkers supported us.  Without that support we would have lost, but we won and my brother laborer was hired back.

To my friends in the climate protection, environmental, and sustainability movements I say:  We can’t let climate protection make victims of workers who happen through no fault of their own to be in the way of changes that are necessary to protect the climate.  Work with us in the labor movement to better understand that sustainability starts at the kitchen table.  Support full employment policies, support Blue-Green Alliance’s Jobs 21 campaign, support the AFL-CIO’s program for full employment, and fight for a just transition that protects the wellbeing of workers and communities who may be hurt by side effects of climate protection policies through no fault of their own.