Reading about tin brings back an amazing memory, thanks again Bruce! When I hear tin, I am reminded that bronze is tin+copper. We all know how the Bronze Age emerged after the Stone Age, but where did the tin come from. In an amazing book about the time around 3000 BCE, I discovered that much of the tin that gave Europe the Bronze Age, came from Cornwall!
The copper is less mysterious, it came from an island whose name means copper, Cyprus (think of cuprous oxide to connect the sounds).
Turns out the ancients mined tin in distant Cornwall for millenia and traded it in large boats in huge ingots. Pretty amazing.
As we ponder technology, toxicology, and history, the story of metals looms large. How much of history and mass slaughter were tied to the story of the metals humanity decided defined wealth and power (gold, silver)?
It seems only fitting a great expert on a most poisonous metal, lead, would ask us to plumb these depths (yes, intended)
Happy Father's Day all, to all the Dad's who prove their mettle every day (again, intended).
Happy Father's Day Arthur! I knew little about tin or tin mining, but I found the history of Cornwall's mines and engines fascinating. The people of Cornwall are understandably proud of their mining heritage and the ingenuity that helped power the Industrial Revolution. Perhaps not surprisingly, the hazards of mining—the dust, disease, injuries, and shortened lives—are often less prominent in museum exhibits than the technological triumphs and economic prosperity the mines produced.
Bruce: Such a great account of Cornwall's history.
Our tendency as humans (well those rich and powerful anyway) to strip the earth of precious resources, spew out toxic waste, and cause deadly illness in the defenseless poor living nearby continues to this day as we demand more energy (oil) and precious minerals.
E.g. there is obviously a huge environmental price to pay for selling Alberta's Tar Sand oil to other countries.
I testified against Agrium (phosphate mining) in Alberta that was poisoning farms nearby with fluoride pollution from its gypsum ponds. Alberta ignored the harm that fluoride was doing to neighbour farms and permitted expansion of the ponds. Obviously Agrium meant more to Alberta than the health of the farmers living nearby the ponds.
We have become dependent on modern gadgets (smart phones). Now electric vehicles are supposed to take over for internal combustion vehicles. But at what cost to the environment and health of the workers or people living nearby mining plants? Especially the poorest of the workers and neighbours.
This documentary blew my mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daMiqjqGmNc&t=217s. Once cobalt (which is essential for so many battery-driven gadgets and cars) is ethically removed from the ground it should be indefinitely recycled. But until we get there, EV cars from China where the battery cobalt is African origin, should be banned in Canada as the government promised.
I, for one, will not buy an EV until the company can provide certificates that the elements used to make the battery where ethically mined and purified WITHOUT child labour.
Thank you Hardy. Continuous growth and resource extraction with too little regard for human health seem to be recurring themes throughout human history. And the pattern isn't slowing down—it is simply changing form. The mines of Cornwall have given way to lithium deposits, deep-sea minerals, engineered stone countertops, and countless other examples.
It's hard to know how best to promote alternatives when so many political and economic forces remain aligned with a "Drill, Baby, Drill" mindset. When I find myself wrestling with these questions, I turn to thoughtful voices like Thomas Berry, who wrote that many of our environmental challenges stem from an outdated story about humanity's relationship with the Earth. His solution was not simply better technology, but a new story that recognizes our interdependence with the natural world. Are you familiar with Berry?
I'm also reminded of Reinhold Niebuhr's observation: “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.” Cheers from Knepp Estate, Bruce
Thanks for the comment Bruce. I'm not a religious person. I did not read any of Berry's books, but maybe I should have (if that's the Thomas Berry to whom you are referring). Caring for our planet is important ....to protect susceptible people from pollution and contaminated water. But....I'm not a fan of the Catholics.
Yesterday was National Indigenous Peoples Day and reconciliation between Canada and the Indigenous has been VERY slow. The Indigenous lived off the land for 17,000 years in Canada and knew how to protect on mother earth on Turtle Island. I was A Canadian white man from Immigrant Germans occupying their land in Mississauga. I was ignorant of the Residential schools in Canada. The last one closed while I was struggling to maintain my CHIR-funded lab work, teaching dental students, keeping a small part-time dental office afloat and raising my two sons who were in grade school at the time. Of course today everyone should be aware of what the Catholic Church did to the First Nations' people- I am unaware of any priest who was involved in the kidnapping of Indigenous kids from their families, beating their Indigenous language and culture out of them, torturing them sexual and physical abuse and secretly burying the ones that died from that abuse on church grounds. T
The Canadian Wildlife Act ensures that reservations protect natural areas and wildlife. The Indian Act of Canada keeps indigenous people on similar 'reserves'....even today.
I took part in a medical-dental mission to Peru and Bolivia and saw what deforestation was doing to the Amazon. The indigenous in Bolivia were dirt poor. We helped small town Bolivians as much as we could medically and dentally. My part was to take out teeth ravished by dental decay and teach children oral hygiene and proper diet (yes, Coca Cola had pushed their poison water into the depths of the Amazon jungle).
Hardy: Thomas Berry is often described as a theologian, but that label doesn't quite capture his work. Although he was a Passionist priest, much of his later writing was less about religion than about history, ecology, cosmology, and the stories societies tell themselves. Berry believed that every civilization is guided by a "Great Story"—a narrative that explains who we are, where we came from, and how we fit into the world. For centuries in the West, that story was largely Christian. But Berry argued that the old story was no longer adequate for the ecological challenges of the modern age. His central question was simple: How do we create a society that can live sustainably within the limits of the Earth? Berry believed the answer required more than better technology or stronger regulations. It required a new story. I think he was right. If the stories that helped drive the Industrial Revolution also contributed to today's environmental crises, then the story that guides the next century will have to be fundamentally different than the old one. It must help us see ourselves not as masters of nature, but as members of a larger living community, with a responsibility to care for the Earth that sustains us.
I need to do more reading. Berry's works look very intriguing. If his vision as a 'geologian' was to encourage the evolution of humanity into a 'multicultural planetary civilization', I wonder if he had proposed in his writings a solution to the dominance of international conglomerates owned by near-trillionaires only interested in increasing their obscene wealth and not helping the 1.1 billion people worldwide experiencing multidimensional poverty who lack access to basic necessities like education, healthcare, and clean water.
Do you apply the same moral standard to phones, laptops, tablets, computers, earbuds, watches, cameras, cordless tools, scooters, e-bikes, power banks, drones, and other rechargeable devices?
They are all part of the lithium-ion battery economy. Many use cobalt, often from the same global supply chains.
And regarding fluoride pollution: many lithium-ion batteries rely on fluorinated chemistry, including LiPF6 electrolyte salts, fluoropolymer binders such as PVDF, PFAS-type additives, and substances that can generate hydrogen fluoride during fires or recycling.
That means battery pollution is not limited to cobalt mining or EVs. It also includes manufacturing emissions, contaminated wastewater, soil and sediment contamination, landfill leachate, battery-disposal pathways, recycling residues, and worker exposure.
If the concern is real, does it not also apply to the whole battery economy, not just EVs?
So interesting! As you point out, the risks of advancing technology can be long lived in their own right, and also as a stepping stone to greater extractive industries that pillage the earth and lead to conflict. The mines, looking so beautiful and benign, are yes, a monument to human ingenuity and also to human suffering. Reading "Radium Girls" now , another clever and costly human discovery. Appreciate the comments.
Thank you and Happy Fathers Day to you Bruce and all the punny fathers!!!!
Q. What is the computer that sings the best? A. A Dell.
Thanks Bruce, I am forwarding this to a friend that explores abandoned mines and films his adventures for YouTube. I think he will enjoy this. Have a great day!
One more tidbit.. They introduced the famous meat pie known as the pasty (a traditional miners' lunch), which remains a local staple in the area today.
Beth: Thank you. The tragedy of silicosis was not simply that it killed miners. It was that the cause was hiding in plain sight. Doctors blamed ladders, damp air, poor ventilation, temperature swings, and even too many Cornish pasties. Williams wrote a fascinating history of the miners: https://www.nmrs.org.uk/assets/pdf/BM34/BM34-19-33-mortality.pdf
Love this… now my turn to share some WI history attached to Cornwall. Thousands of miners immigrated from Cornwall, England, to Mineral Point, Wisconsin, during the 1830s and 1840s. They were drawn by the region's major lead mining boom.
Beth: Yes, an interesting history. One of the most fascinating stories is about the Cornish mining diaspora. As mines declined in Cornwall, miners carried their skills and ingenuity around the world, helping develop mining industries everywhere from Australia and South Africa to the Americas. In many ways, Cornwall exported not just miners, but an entire engineering tradition.
Reading about tin brings back an amazing memory, thanks again Bruce! When I hear tin, I am reminded that bronze is tin+copper. We all know how the Bronze Age emerged after the Stone Age, but where did the tin come from. In an amazing book about the time around 3000 BCE, I discovered that much of the tin that gave Europe the Bronze Age, came from Cornwall!
The copper is less mysterious, it came from an island whose name means copper, Cyprus (think of cuprous oxide to connect the sounds).
Turns out the ancients mined tin in distant Cornwall for millenia and traded it in large boats in huge ingots. Pretty amazing.
As we ponder technology, toxicology, and history, the story of metals looms large. How much of history and mass slaughter were tied to the story of the metals humanity decided defined wealth and power (gold, silver)?
It seems only fitting a great expert on a most poisonous metal, lead, would ask us to plumb these depths (yes, intended)
Happy Father's Day all, to all the Dad's who prove their mettle every day (again, intended).
Thanks, Arthur. No tin in North America = No Bronze Age.
Happy Father's Day Arthur! I knew little about tin or tin mining, but I found the history of Cornwall's mines and engines fascinating. The people of Cornwall are understandably proud of their mining heritage and the ingenuity that helped power the Industrial Revolution. Perhaps not surprisingly, the hazards of mining—the dust, disease, injuries, and shortened lives—are often less prominent in museum exhibits than the technological triumphs and economic prosperity the mines produced.
Bruce: Such a great account of Cornwall's history.
Our tendency as humans (well those rich and powerful anyway) to strip the earth of precious resources, spew out toxic waste, and cause deadly illness in the defenseless poor living nearby continues to this day as we demand more energy (oil) and precious minerals.
E.g. there is obviously a huge environmental price to pay for selling Alberta's Tar Sand oil to other countries.
I testified against Agrium (phosphate mining) in Alberta that was poisoning farms nearby with fluoride pollution from its gypsum ponds. Alberta ignored the harm that fluoride was doing to neighbour farms and permitted expansion of the ponds. Obviously Agrium meant more to Alberta than the health of the farmers living nearby the ponds.
We have become dependent on modern gadgets (smart phones). Now electric vehicles are supposed to take over for internal combustion vehicles. But at what cost to the environment and health of the workers or people living nearby mining plants? Especially the poorest of the workers and neighbours.
This documentary blew my mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daMiqjqGmNc&t=217s. Once cobalt (which is essential for so many battery-driven gadgets and cars) is ethically removed from the ground it should be indefinitely recycled. But until we get there, EV cars from China where the battery cobalt is African origin, should be banned in Canada as the government promised.
https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2026/06/canada-tables-legislation-to-strengthen-prohibition-on-goods-produced-with-forced-labour.html
I, for one, will not buy an EV until the company can provide certificates that the elements used to make the battery where ethically mined and purified WITHOUT child labour.
Thank you Hardy. Continuous growth and resource extraction with too little regard for human health seem to be recurring themes throughout human history. And the pattern isn't slowing down—it is simply changing form. The mines of Cornwall have given way to lithium deposits, deep-sea minerals, engineered stone countertops, and countless other examples.
It's hard to know how best to promote alternatives when so many political and economic forces remain aligned with a "Drill, Baby, Drill" mindset. When I find myself wrestling with these questions, I turn to thoughtful voices like Thomas Berry, who wrote that many of our environmental challenges stem from an outdated story about humanity's relationship with the Earth. His solution was not simply better technology, but a new story that recognizes our interdependence with the natural world. Are you familiar with Berry?
I'm also reminded of Reinhold Niebuhr's observation: “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.” Cheers from Knepp Estate, Bruce
Thanks for the comment Bruce. I'm not a religious person. I did not read any of Berry's books, but maybe I should have (if that's the Thomas Berry to whom you are referring). Caring for our planet is important ....to protect susceptible people from pollution and contaminated water. But....I'm not a fan of the Catholics.
Yesterday was National Indigenous Peoples Day and reconciliation between Canada and the Indigenous has been VERY slow. The Indigenous lived off the land for 17,000 years in Canada and knew how to protect on mother earth on Turtle Island. I was A Canadian white man from Immigrant Germans occupying their land in Mississauga. I was ignorant of the Residential schools in Canada. The last one closed while I was struggling to maintain my CHIR-funded lab work, teaching dental students, keeping a small part-time dental office afloat and raising my two sons who were in grade school at the time. Of course today everyone should be aware of what the Catholic Church did to the First Nations' people- I am unaware of any priest who was involved in the kidnapping of Indigenous kids from their families, beating their Indigenous language and culture out of them, torturing them sexual and physical abuse and secretly burying the ones that died from that abuse on church grounds. T
The Canadian Wildlife Act ensures that reservations protect natural areas and wildlife. The Indian Act of Canada keeps indigenous people on similar 'reserves'....even today.
I took part in a medical-dental mission to Peru and Bolivia and saw what deforestation was doing to the Amazon. The indigenous in Bolivia were dirt poor. We helped small town Bolivians as much as we could medically and dentally. My part was to take out teeth ravished by dental decay and teach children oral hygiene and proper diet (yes, Coca Cola had pushed their poison water into the depths of the Amazon jungle).
But when I saw the Catholic Church in Concepcion ....here is a picture of the church (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Conception_Cathedral,_Concepci%C3%B3n#/media/File:Concepcion_church_interior.JPG) I was disgusted by how much money residents of that poor town put into the building and how much it supported the Catholic Church.
If Berry had written a book about how he was dedicated to freeing the oppressed from the grips of the Catholic Church, I might have read it.
Hardy: Thomas Berry is often described as a theologian, but that label doesn't quite capture his work. Although he was a Passionist priest, much of his later writing was less about religion than about history, ecology, cosmology, and the stories societies tell themselves. Berry believed that every civilization is guided by a "Great Story"—a narrative that explains who we are, where we came from, and how we fit into the world. For centuries in the West, that story was largely Christian. But Berry argued that the old story was no longer adequate for the ecological challenges of the modern age. His central question was simple: How do we create a society that can live sustainably within the limits of the Earth? Berry believed the answer required more than better technology or stronger regulations. It required a new story. I think he was right. If the stories that helped drive the Industrial Revolution also contributed to today's environmental crises, then the story that guides the next century will have to be fundamentally different than the old one. It must help us see ourselves not as masters of nature, but as members of a larger living community, with a responsibility to care for the Earth that sustains us.
I need to do more reading. Berry's works look very intriguing. If his vision as a 'geologian' was to encourage the evolution of humanity into a 'multicultural planetary civilization', I wonder if he had proposed in his writings a solution to the dominance of international conglomerates owned by near-trillionaires only interested in increasing their obscene wealth and not helping the 1.1 billion people worldwide experiencing multidimensional poverty who lack access to basic necessities like education, healthcare, and clean water.
I don't think he was that specific. I doubt, however, that he could envision near trillionaires even though he died a mere 17 years ago.
Do you apply the same moral standard to phones, laptops, tablets, computers, earbuds, watches, cameras, cordless tools, scooters, e-bikes, power banks, drones, and other rechargeable devices?
They are all part of the lithium-ion battery economy. Many use cobalt, often from the same global supply chains.
And regarding fluoride pollution: many lithium-ion batteries rely on fluorinated chemistry, including LiPF6 electrolyte salts, fluoropolymer binders such as PVDF, PFAS-type additives, and substances that can generate hydrogen fluoride during fires or recycling.
That means battery pollution is not limited to cobalt mining or EVs. It also includes manufacturing emissions, contaminated wastewater, soil and sediment contamination, landfill leachate, battery-disposal pathways, recycling residues, and worker exposure.
If the concern is real, does it not also apply to the whole battery economy, not just EVs?
So interesting! As you point out, the risks of advancing technology can be long lived in their own right, and also as a stepping stone to greater extractive industries that pillage the earth and lead to conflict. The mines, looking so beautiful and benign, are yes, a monument to human ingenuity and also to human suffering. Reading "Radium Girls" now , another clever and costly human discovery. Appreciate the comments.
Thank you and Happy Fathers Day to you Bruce and all the punny fathers!!!!
Q. What is the computer that sings the best? A. A Dell.
Thanks Bruce, I am forwarding this to a friend that explores abandoned mines and films his adventures for YouTube. I think he will enjoy this. Have a great day!
One more tidbit.. They introduced the famous meat pie known as the pasty (a traditional miners' lunch), which remains a local staple in the area today.
Beth: Thank you. The tragedy of silicosis was not simply that it killed miners. It was that the cause was hiding in plain sight. Doctors blamed ladders, damp air, poor ventilation, temperature swings, and even too many Cornish pasties. Williams wrote a fascinating history of the miners: https://www.nmrs.org.uk/assets/pdf/BM34/BM34-19-33-mortality.pdf
Love this… now my turn to share some WI history attached to Cornwall. Thousands of miners immigrated from Cornwall, England, to Mineral Point, Wisconsin, during the 1830s and 1840s. They were drawn by the region's major lead mining boom.
Beth: Yes, an interesting history. One of the most fascinating stories is about the Cornish mining diaspora. As mines declined in Cornwall, miners carried their skills and ingenuity around the world, helping develop mining industries everywhere from Australia and South Africa to the Americas. In many ways, Cornwall exported not just miners, but an entire engineering tradition.
Another thought provoking post. Well done. Thanks Bruce.