"National Party media trainer Paul Holmes, who never has anything intelligent to say, has chipped in by musing that the mine ought to have been open-cast. Let’s see, Holmes is proposing removing 160m thick of rock across an area probably several square kilometres in size to get at a 7m thick seam of coal. Does that sound like a feasible exercise to you? Pike River didn’t want to do that – it’s logistically and economically impossible. You open cast mine deposits on the surface, for deep ones, you dig small holes to the seam, and then dig it up. Holmes is a twit"
Marty at The Standard calls out pathetic Paul Holmes and the other low-brows clamouring for green heads to roll following the Pike River mine disaster.
This a plain daft and , as Marty says, a sickening attempt to score political points.
Shunda Barunda, our man on the Coast says much the same as Marty but clear thinking like theirs won't stop the knee-jerking anti-environmentalists from baying ad nauseum.
Monday, November 29, 2010
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8 comments:
I really hope this attitude doesn't gain traction here Robert.
This is just an appalling attitude and completely devoid of logic.
Did the claim that Australian greenies were responsible for the forest fires there 'gain traction' Shunda?
Of course there are those who crave a new stick to beat the green folk with.
Cannabis has lost a lot of it's scariness, now that National has legalised its use for pain relief.
There was a huge outcry when they did that. Wasn't there?
Not a peep!
Kia ora Robert,
Why does this notion somehow emerge that open cast or mountain top removal is somehow "safe"? Only this year in West Virginia 25 miners were killed and 6 others never found due to a massive explosion in an open top mine. And in 1972 in the same heavily mined state an inpoundment dam, a lovely feature of open top mining holding the toxins, sludge and waste water mining creates, dams which remain forever, unless such as this one it burst releasing over 132 million gallons of toxic waste which wiped out the mining town of Buffalo Creek, killing 125 and injuring over 1000. "Safe" indeed!
Not to mention the forest destruction, road building, water shed pollution and destruction of native habitat. How arrogant these reactionaries can be. Why are they not asking the real questions such as the economic pressure to make this mine pay off now, how it had cut its profit forecast in half for the year. The only green this is about is green cash.
Robb
Thanks for all that Robb.
I'm composing a dossier!
Nandor says coal is not safe, for burning or mining and explains why here:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Pike-River---the-hard-coaled-facts/tabid/1341/articleID/188481/Default.aspx
In one sense, though, these men’s deaths are part of the price paid for coal. Coal mining IS dangerous. There are many things that can be done to manage and mitigate risk but we are deluding ourselves if we think we can have coal without some people dying for it. Just as we are deluding ourselves if we think we can sustain our petroleum addiction by drilling in ever more difficult and dangerous places without suffering more marine catastrophes. Fossil fuel addiction, like P addiction, has little regard for its collateral damage. (shortened version)
Reading your blog and following links to some much more technically informed (up to date) and intelligent discussion on Pike River than we've had from any of the NZ media I've read/watched.
For example, despite the resources that could be marshalled by the big news companies, I'm not aware that any of them talked to a currently active mines safety personnel to get the kind of useful insight provided by an Aussie medic using the name thefrolickingmole on this site:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/24/pitmen-mining-pike-river-struggles
DennisP also had useful things to say, his last post reads:
"I suppose most not knowledgeable about coal mines believed that modern technology would have come to the rescue of the Pike River men, as it did to the Chilean miners of late. But a coal mine is a whole different scenario when compared to hard rock mining. To be honest, when I heard that there had been a firedamp explosion in an NZ coal mine, I held little hope for a happy end to the tale."
The NZ media bought into the holding out false hope by not providing well-informed technical information. It was cruel and misleading, and left a vacuum to be filled by ill-informed crap -- so that you even get the mayor of Greymouth as the spokesman for the community talking the 'old wisdom' about going straight in after an explosion.
It's been a very sobering example of how badly we are currently being served by the news media.
Not cheers
Something odd has occured with comments to this post - they're appearing in my email but not here!
I'll paste any in as they arrive and try to sort the glitch.
Robert
They were marked as 'spam'.
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