In the West, mining’s return faces resistance. The region’s newcomers, who came for high-tech jobs and scenery, worry about ecological costs. By Ben Arnoldy. Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor.
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While there is an economic need for more copper, nickel, tin, etc, there is no need for more gold. Gold is unique because its price is more relevant as a store of wealth (gold investments as an alternative to stocks, bonds, etc.) than as an industrial material. More mining, means more gold, and this is not necessarily a benefit.
However, gold mining is the most destructive of new mines cropping up all over the West and the world. In opposing a new gold mine, you do not have to fight economic arguments about “the need” for a metal.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He has been a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and also its President. For many years he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
