Get a room you two.

This nth degreeism you're both engaging in is slightly farcical.

You can actually care about the environment and want a better, cleaner more sustainable world without living in a cave without running water and electricity.

Get a room you two.

This nth degreeism you're both engaging in is slightly farcical.

You can actually care about the environment and want a better, cleaner more sustainable world without living in a cave without running water and electricity.

Your problem is you only see people's arguments as either black or white....where did I mention I wanted absolute obliteration of the environment?
I merely highlighted his contradiction in his argument....

The very fact he posts at all and has the device to do it on means he no leg to stand on :

Yeh but this is Ricey MKII who deals in absolutes and right-wing slandering.

If you want to deal in absolutes, prepare for the consequences.

I'm no fan or Rags make no mistake but the arguments you are making are woeful.

BHP have had a shocker here and they have previous form. OK Tedi for example.

Without trying to sound condescending or patronising (and I understand it does sound like that) I've come to expect more sophisticated arguments from yourself.

The other bloke, not so much.

I do realise you are exaggerating your position.

The citizens of Detroit might disagree with you about how great it is to just uproot and leave.

Surely there's more to life than the mindless pursuit of profit?

Sure the Commonwealth Bank can save a few dollars when they outsource a call centre to the Philippines but this is where you and I will depart from the capitalist songsheet.

I think (and that's just me) that profit should come with moral obligation to the people you're making that profit from. (You'll disagree and that's fine.)

Put another way lets say 10 people are working in a government agency in a small regional town (with a higher unemployment rate than the average like most small towns) at 80% of their productive capacity. They're not busting their hump but they're not slouching either. In comes an "efficiency and productivity" expert and decides that if you sack 4 staff and rejig things a bit you can save a bucketload of cash.

Well now 6 people are working flat chat and 4 people are on the dole. Those 4 people and their families don't go out to dinner, they don't go to the moves, they have no disposable income so they basically stop spending money and now they don't pay tax and they're a drain on the economy because they're drawing the dole. On top of that Little Johnny and Jane can't afford to play sport, they don't go on school excursions and mum and dad can't take them anywhere on holidays and they're resentful of that as well.

On paper the sacking of those 4 people looks great for the bottom line. Elsewhere it looks pretty ordinary.

I'm not saying employ people to do nothing but I'm not sure outsourcing, redundancies, productivity gains, efficiency dividends are as good as they're cracked up to be. There's huge knock on effects.



Edited by munrubenmuz: 1/10/2015 07:50:58 PM

Four Queensland coal miners have been diagnosed with pneumoconiosis or "black lung" — a potentially fatal disease thought to have been eradicated in Australia more than 60 years ago.

Unions fear the cases could be just the tip of the iceberg, with hundreds, possibly thousands of workers potentially at risk.

"This is one this of the most serious issues facing workers in the coal industry," Queensland Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) president Stephen Smyth told 7.30.

"The health and safety of the workers is paramount and this is a time bomb ticking away."

X-rays and lung tests have been used since 1947 as an early warning system to detect early signs of black lung and dust levels in mines have been constantly monitored.

However, the mining boom and new longwall mining techniques have exposed more miners to more dust.

At the same time, the monitoring system appears to have failed...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-01/'black-lung'-makes-comeback-in-queensland-coal-mines/6990842

An environmental law firm says the State Government needs to take action to ensure new air quality standards are met in central Queensland mining communities.

Environmental Justice Australia (EJA) says the Government is well overdue to revise previous standards, which had not changed since 1998, given what is now known about the negative health impacts of exposure to particulate matter (PM10).

"More Australians die each year from being exposed to particle pollution than from car accidents," EJA researcher Dr James Whelan said.

"In central Queensland, there's quite an extraordinary situation where many communities are exposed to PM10 emissions from coal mines and they just don't know what levels of PM10 they're being exposed to."

The National Clean Air Agreement was introduced last December, giving Queensland a tightened standard for particulate matter concentrations.

PM10 is toxic, inhalable air dust and can include acids such as nitrates and sulphates, organic chemicals, metals, and dust particles.

Dr Whelan said coal mining was likely to be responsible for "more than 90 per cent of PM10 that communities in central Queensland are exposed to".....
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-15/air-pollution-monitoring-near-qld-mining-communities/7089060

I'd wager exhaust fumes in high density cities would greatly exceed these levels.

Enviro's will stop at nothing to hijack mining. Australian mining is subject to high levels of regulation, almost to the point where it is unfeasible to mine because profits are eaten up by regulations and safety requirements which are beyond reason. I would know, I've been to mines.

When was the last time you went to a mine MR?

Good ol anecdata....

Sorry, when did you say you last went to a mine? :lol:

I recently wanted to see the one in Morwell, but it was on fire and instead I had to divert and visit my dying uncle in hospital as a result of said fire

To back up the last statement there are quite a few incidents at mines. I do not for one second think mining and miners are infallible. It is well known that 'certain' companies will relax their safety standards when profits fall and ramp them back up before the next incident. Once again, anecdotal so make of it what you will.

As I've stated previously, many environmental issues are associated with atrocious engineering and a lack of design foresight. Companies will spend millions to construct dams to control tailings but will skimp out on buying a few hundred K on a geo-synthetic liner. Over time and during peak events, un-lined liquid retention structures can fail either locally or globally. Either that or the civil engineering/hydrologist team screw up the capacity requirements. That's when this stuff ends up on the news.

Detroit is an example of what happens to an economically vibrant city when you replace the white population with a black population. An industrial powerhouse suddenly becomes Kinshasa in Middle America. Every year more blacks are killed in black on black violence in Detroit than were ever murdered by the KKK.

So it seems that maybe the issue is enforcement? Or maybe being overly regulated in some areas and not others?

My honest opinion is that they are so over regulated in terms of safety that people forget the basics and common sense.

After 3 days of inductions I couldn't remember what I was told on the first day.

Also safety gear is often impractical. I had to wear full finger gloves at all times (across all mine sites). My job is to classify soil. I can't classify soil effectively wearing gloves. The other one is forcing our drillers to wear gloves. On a geotechnical drilling rig there are many points where gloves can get caught resulting in injury. It is actually more dangerous for a driller to have to wear full finger gloves. Try telling that to a mine.

I also think that a lot of regulations are impractical. Working with Origin, we had to build a bund around the drill rig in case it leaked water. The drilling products we use are non-toxic and bio-degradable. We also couldn't take water from the nearby creek. We had to wait up to 3 hours at a time for a water truck from Roma (we were north of Indune in QLD). Stuff like this is just silly. It blows out costs and makes companies reckless.

Mining seems to be a target for over regulation and over the top safety because of the pressure they're under. It is resulting in accidents.

It sounds like a lot of the "over the top" measures are more at the level of the individual person - I assume that is at least partly due to CFMEU pressure??? Is the issue more around the engineering/planning/ approval stage?

I work in health & safety (but not in mining). I am constantly amazed about how little understanding regulators often have of the industries they are regulating. So I am not surprised by what you are saying.

Often I have found the issue to be that some areas are massively over-regulated, and regulated poorly. Whereas other areas (which I think are often more deserving of regulation) have vague rules, unclear requirements etc.

I don't want to overstate the extent of it. I think well structure and directed regulation of many industries is really vital. But it can be very confusing at times as to how regulatory priorities are set!

Definitely! Hierarchy of control needs to apply. If you are too reliant on workers to remember everything or stay hyper vigilant you will always fail. The goal has to be to engineer out as much as possible.

The other thing is how much of a busybody the company internal safety people are. It is just so easy to put in place induction/checklist stuff because it gives the appearance of a safety culture. It doesn't make it effective though. Agree with you 100% there.

i reckon murdoch rags should sign off and not use mobile phones or computers ever again since the parts used to make them are as a result of mining.

(from the World Events thread) You need to educate yourself more on the 'absolutism fallacy' that typifies simplistic right wing thinking
EG: "Greenies aren't serious unless they go back to living in caves"

Like shooting fish in a barrel.....

Like shooting fish in a barrel.....

Like shooting fish in a barrel.....

As well as potentially paying out sacked workers' entitlements, taxpayers could be forced to stump up tens of millions of dollars to clean up the site of Clive Palmer's north Queensland refinery if the company cannot trade its way out of voluntary administration.

Queensland Government sources have told the ABC that the cost of remediating the Queensland Nickel site, at Yabulu, could be anywhere from $25 million to $40 million.

Former owner BHP believed the environmental clean-up cost may exceed $100 million, while the Queensland Opposition said the clean up bill could be "upwards of $300 million".....
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-20/clive-palmer-queensland-nickel-refinery-yabulu-clean-up-bill/7100932

The rich have worked so hard. Who are we to scream that they are walking away from their responsibilities....!!!