The Environmental Movement and the Mining Industry Will Meet the Other Halfway

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We need to put everything on the table at the same time and discuss what is sensible. There's a massive paper industry in Finland, why do we need such a large paper industry? And there's a few screams of pain around that when you start saying, well maybe we should shrink that then. Things like the plastics industry can be replaced with bioplastics in some respects. But if we're already harvesting too much out of the environment, what is truly sustainable? We need everyone to get the same table because that thing can only be used for one output.

On this episode, mining and geology expert Simon Michaux returns to give a preliminary framework for responses to the coming energy and material constraints described in the previous episode. This includes both practical thoughts for how to organize communities around resources and also a shift in mindset from short term to long-term and from competition to cooperation. How do we simultaneously lay out all of the biophysical constraints on the table so that we can begin preparing for and adapting to a changing future?

About Simon Michaux

Dr. Simon Michaux is an Associate Professor of Geometallurgy at the Geological Survey of Finland. He has a PhD in mining engineering. Dr. Michaux’s long-term work is on societal transformation toward a circular economy.

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