books
mass destruction the men and giant mines that wired america and scarred the planet
the place the steep mountains outside salt lake city . the time the first decade of the twentieth century . the man daniel jackling a young metallurgical engineer . the goal a bold new technology that could provide billions of pounds of cheap copper for a rapidly electrifying america . the result binghams enormous glory hole the first large scale open pit copper mine an enormous chasm in the earth and one of the largest humanmade artifacts on the planet . mass destruction is the compelling story of jackling and the development of open pit hard rock mining its role in the wiring of an electrified america as well its devastating environmental consequences . p mass destruction mining soon spread around the nation and the globe providing raw materials essential to the mass production and mass consumption that increasingly defined the emerging american way of life . at the dawn of the last century jacklings open pit replaced immense but constricted underground mines that probed nearly a mile beneath the earth to become the ultimate symbol of the modern faith that science and technology could overcome all natural limits . a new culture of mass destruction emerged that promised nearly infinite supplies not only of copper but also of coal timber fish and other natural resources . p but what were the consequences timothy j. lecain deftly analyzes how open pit mining continues to affect the environment in its ongoing devastation of nature and commodification of the physical world . the nations largest toxic superfund site would be one effect as well as other types of environmental dead zones around the globe . yet today as the worlds population races toward american levels of resource consumption truly viable alternatives to the technology of mass destruction have not yet emerged .
hardcover rutgers university press 2009 isbn13 9780813545295 isbn10 0813545293
abridged n isbn 13 9780813545295 number in series 1 number of pages 273 publisher rutgers univ pr release date 62135769600000