The CEO of a ‘senior’ gold miner like Newmont or Barrick Gold will throw up their hands at these steps. ‘You are just trying to put us out of business!’ they will exclaim, brimming with corporate outrage. They aren’t wrong, of course, but if gold cannot be mined in a humane, non-toxic, non-polluting fashion that has real benefit for the public purse, then why bother with it? We have enough of the stuff already. We never get rid of it – just pass it about. So why puff out climate-degrading carbon emissions to get our hands on more of the big yellow?
We badly need to reduce our ecological footprint to enable us to survive as a species. Why not start with something almost completely useless – like gold?
