OUT OF SITE, OUT OF MINED: MINES BRING BENEFITS BUT THEY ARE NOT EQUALLY SPREAD South Africa is known for its extraordinary abundance of rich minerals. Furthermore, the future of South Africa is dependent on mines as they bring in money for the country. Therefore, Mining is a very profitable sector and it also creates employment opportunities; factors which help improve the socio-economic standards of the country. However, despite these benefits, the nature of mining has a negative long-term effect on the environment and its people during and years after the mines are closed. This impact has led to mixed emotions with regards to mining and its practices and as a result the introduction of mining regulations to ensure that the negatives are outweighed by positives. Consequently, although there are benefits from mining, there are several negative effects of mining for the people and the environment which have a detrimental effect. BENEFITS ARE NOT EQUALLY SPREAD To reiterate, the mining sector has benefits but in most, if not all cases it comes at a cost to those who should be benefited by mining the most. Therefore, it seems that the Large-scale mining companies, investors, and the government take precedence and reap the rewards. In ‘’Mining Capitalism: The relationship between Corporations and their critics’’, Stuart Kirsch looks at powerful corporations and how they often misuse their power - according to Kirsch, corporations are responsible for a wide range of
We are able to mine many different minerals like gold, nickel, and silver. Gold can be found in greenstone belt; they have found over US $192 Billion and most of that gold was given to Fort Knox, and some of it was sold to jewelery store all across the Canadian Shield. Also,
The second pernicious influence is human resource exploitation. Laborers become more like work tools for industrial monopolies rather than human beings. Genders and age do not matter to the authority as they prioritize their benefits over the workers’. Not only do they have to suffer from exploitative boss, the proletariat is also made advantage of by other powers, such as landlords.
We sacrifice our lives to have free trade and more, cheaper goods, but to what extent are people willing to go to to get what they want? While these new methods of making things are being used more and more often, we are causing extreme tolls on our earth and some of the people who are needed to make the production possible. As shown in Document 5, we are using more and more of the natural unrenewable resources, causing more pollution and environmental destruction. At some point, this could get really bad to the point we wouldn't be able to even use these methods anymore. In using all of these resources we get to buy and sell cheap goods.
Coal miners will always continue to fight for their rights to fair wages and health benefits. However, its apparent from the readings in class and this documentary that because coal miners were of a low social class often called hillbilly’s the mining corporations thought they could use them without giving them their full rights to fair wages and health compensation. In conclusion, the documentary film: Blood on the Mountain brought me to some new perspective on what coal miners had to go through, but I was also able to relate to this film because I had prior knowledge of these hardships. It was interesting on what these coal miners went through and I am glad I got to be able to hear from two different informative
These corporations became increasingly powerful and influential, controlling vast amounts of wealth and resources. However, the success of these corporations came at the expense of workers, who often endured
(Jeff Goddell, 2006). Mining kills even those uninvolved in the production of it. There are a vast amount of environmental sanctions and safety standards in mines, yet most do not follow them correctly. Companies must pay for all of this, yet they want to be able to make profit.
The reason why I say that is because I was walking through a property that belonged to a business and I saw the workers of these business dumping waste and polluting the area that not only belonged to the property but that was around it as well. Trains were destroying the area by plummeting the soil with its rods which is absolutely terrible because people benefit of soil for many things such as food and clothes which are the basic necessities one needs to live. It’s already bad enough that workers pollute the environment but now also the factories they work in as well which be releasing dirty smoke that harms the air that we breathe as well now. That’s why our natural resources that come in limited amounts are being wasted and damaged by these big companies and
When money and profits are the most significant in the capitalist society, the employers treated their workers poorly, such as excessive working hours and received lower wages. The exploitation of
In this case, I understand wanting to be able to invest in technology and wanting to advance this new industry. This was a great way of climbing the economic ladder, this can be seen similarly to investing in crypto or being early/consistent with social media. However, this can also be abused, as mentioned higher-ups would take advantage of this position by making themselves of only ones in control of their market making it difficult to get in or advance. Along with that since there weren’t any laws protecting workers the officials could care less about their worker's environmental conditions, only if it made them money. I’m happy that we have been able to grow and learn from this type of lifestyle, mostly and be able to protect others and our
The concept of environmental justice was first introduced in South Africa at the Earthlife 1992 conference (Cock 2004, p.6). Defined as the ‘fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies’ (U.S Environment Protection Agency, 2012), environmental justice aims to shift the world towards environmentally friendly development and eradicate exploitation of natural resources and indigenous communities. Most importantly, it deals mainly with the environmental injustices of these relationships, and the ways and means of rectifying these wrongs and/or avoiding them in the future
These companies target low-income communities because the families are desperate for jobs and lack the social status to push them out. So, as a solution to this problem, the government must "continue to enact comprehensive laws carrying severe criminal and civil penalties for harming the environment," also at the corporate level "it means rigorous inspections of companies and prosecution of violators" (Eitzen, Smith, and Zinn
Throughout the ages, many nations have been known to do whatever it takes to sustain a valuable supply of resources. For this reason, however the exploitation of resources by countries using unfair means is an enduring issue for many groups of people. Exploitation of resources is when the government or outside forces take advantage of a nation’s resources. This issue is significant because it causes civil conflict and war, can impact people of nations terribly, and can destroy industry. Problems created by exploitation of resources can be seen in examples from Sierra Leone, the Congo and British India.
In the second paragraph, he lists off multiple things that are going on that already take a toll on the people but yet the steel industries increase their
Many of the employees keep beating around the bush with respect to their answers and defend their company, stating that all its practices are ethical and legal. He even interviews the head of Corporate Social Responsibility who acknowledges the problem and says that there is ‘no way to trace the minerals back to the mines that they come from.’ Nokia in its annual reports and on its website claims to be a market leader in Corporate Social Responsibility and Conscious Capitalism but these claims are mostly fabricated. These are simply words on a piece of paper to convince consumers that the product they’re buying is blood free and ethical when in reality this couldn’t be further from the truth. Several NGOs that were also interviewed by Poulsen confirm this fact and state that even though they’ve had the knowledge of the existence of this problem for ten years they have done more or less nothing to even take steps toward solving this problem simply because it will cost them money and diminish their
In the perspective of third world's countries, it is shown to give many opportunities for employment, but what large corporations won't tell you is that they are exploiting the smaller less industrialized and causing havoc and damage to them. For instance, China's pollution rate is