Siding With Salamanders

http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2010/08/siding-with-salamanders

The New York Times has an editorial denouncing the practice of "mountaintop mining," which it frets would have "downstream impact on fish, salamanders and other aquatic life." Says the Times: "the coal companies need to develop ways to mine this coal without blasting the tops off mountains and fouling the waters below."

The way to do that is with a traditional, old-fashioned mine, which may be friendlier to salamanders but is a lot more dangerous to human miners, a species that the Times rather astonishingly manages to write the entire editorial without even a nod toward the safety of. More on the tradeoffs between safety of humans and salamanders in mining here. Nothing against salamanders, and, like many things, it isn't necessarily a zero-sum game, but if it were up to me I'd be willing to expose the salamanders to some risk to save some human miners.

by Ira Stoll  |  Aug 21, 2010 at 11:05 pm Related Topics:  Energy, Press receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free futureofcapitalism.com mailing list