Obama Needs a Mine Rescue

Did the world ever need the rescue operation in Chile? You betcha. It’s the very best news the world has had in a very long time. I have spent time in the Hard Rock mining community of Butte Montana. I can feel that emotional excitement as the Guys are brought out alive from a half mile down in the rock. In Butte I mostly experienced the opposite. Following a rock slide or a roof failure, miners were brought up mauled or dead. That is exactly the opposite of the emotions being experienced in Chile.

I am also very proud of the fact that the drill that was the first to break through the rock and reach the trapped men was made in Pennsylvania. This should assure Tom Friedman of the NY Times that, yes we can still make good stuff right here in Pennsylvania.(Friedman often bellyaches, in his columns about the fact that we can't make anything anymore.)

The Mine Rescue is exactly the kind of break Obama needs. Instead he got hit with the oil blowout in the Gulf. That just added to a feeling that our government is impotent in the face of any natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina before the BP blowout. Obama administration was far to slow to act in the face of the Gulf disaster. Much of that failure falls on the shoulders of the Cabinet Secretaries who are supposed to be able to take charge in emergencies. Problem is, Presidents tend to hire politicians who need to be paid off rather than people who are actually knowledgeable about their responsibilities.

I have my fingers crossed that Obama might get a breakthrough in of all places Afganistan. Fareed Zakaria reported this week that President Karzai of Afganistan has invited the Taliban to a peace conference in Kabul. Zakaria suggests that if that could succeed it might mean an early end to this 9 year nightmare in Afganistan, If that were to happen Obama’s schedule for the US to leave by July 2011 would turnout to be right on track. That would be Obamas “Mine Rescue Drama.”

When thinking about mine safety there’s another important difference to remember. The Mine in Chile is in hard rock. That suggests they are mining minerals like gold, silver copper, zinc, lead etc. But not coal. Coal mining is where most gas explosions occur. They are far more dangerous mines than the hard rock. And of course that’s part of the argument for open pitting for coal. In that case the danger of gas explosion’s go away. That has other devastating consequences. The the stuff on top of the coal face, called the “overburden” is lifted to expose the coal. It gets dumped in the hollows of West Virginia and end up contaminating the water table. That's got the environmentalists up in arms to save the rivers and streams from being poisoned.

I think of it all as just more chapters in the history of the Industrial Revolution. I have often wondered why was it called a “revolution”? I think I’m beginning to know. Revolution has been against the resources of the planet. Yes we are using them up or as we exploit them they begin to hit back as seen by the red mud lumina sludge in Hungary or if you will, Global Warming. (Just had the hottest July and August on record.)

I will now figure out how I can celebrate the successful effort to save the lives of a group of Chilean miners doing one of the most dangerous jobs on earth. PS. My very first involvement with miners was at 7 years old my father sent me out with a shopping bag to collect canned food for the Harlan County coal miners who were on strike.