This House Believes that Mining cause more harm than good

I once more remind the voters that the burden is upon my opponent and that they must show why mining causes more harm than good. I will systematically refute my opponent's case and then go on to provide some positive material of my own. My opponent's 'argument' can be summarized into two parts for which he gives either little or no supporting analysis: 1. There is a risk associated with it. For this he provides a series of references to certain accidents, however he presents absolutely no articles to support his view, not doe he show where he got his statistics from. 2. It is harmful to the animals. Let us start with the first part. On the first tier he states that there are risks associated with mining, I will not deny this. I will however say this: that over the years the risk has decreased considerably. If we use good technology, such as the United States of America the death toll per year is now only 35. This is of course much less than the original amount a few decades ago which was 1500. Also now injuries only occur in 0.0381 of cases. Compare this to the benefits which I will discuss below, all rational people will state that mining is in fact very useful, with very little harm. Reports also show that in the coming year the threat will decrease so that there are only 3 deaths every 5 years. [1] Compare this with smoking which causes fatal, and painful diseases in 212,678 people per year; this aside with other deaths. [2] Now granted this can be a problem but consider it with the benefits. Since the resolution is a comparative resolution my opponent had the burden to compare it to the benefits to show that the harm has preponderance over the benefits, this he did not do. Now I will name the benefits on two tiers: the economic tier; and the lifestyle tier. This will also include my own positive argument as well. Let us start with the economic benefits, in respect to labor employed. In total there are 379,430 people employed in the United States itself, which makes approximately $2,111,230 for workers. You will be putting all these people out of a job, which in this economic crises means many families will face problems. [3] This is in the United States of America along, there are numerous other countries. Other than this lets understand that a lot of countries depend their entire economies on coal production, Chile for example has increased its GDP per capita on mining alone and seeks to use it in the future as well. It provides 20% of the GDP, and 60% of the export of Chile. [4] Can you imagine what would happen if they stopped their coal production? Their entire economy would fail. Similarly we can take the example of Pakistan a country with an absolutely horrible economy mines 185.176 tonnes of coal every year. Now the average earning of the Pakistani is only $3 a day which allows one to barely survive, the average a coal worker earns is $12, and these workers span around 400,000 people, also 50% of the workers are from Afghanistan. It is commonly understood that if the industry closed these workers may join terrorist organizations to make enough money to survive, so you see it is important that mining continues. [6] Now lets talk about the lifestyle and how the modern world is built on minerals or metals that we have mined. If we should stop mining then we must let go of medicine, travel, laptops, or any sorts of technology which makes uses of metals. There would be no electricity in homes because the wires are made out of copper which is a metal which is mined. [7] There would be no MRI's for medicinal purposes because metal is used in the machine[8], as metal is used in all surgical tools[9]. We would have no houses as the building uses metals, and the equipment is made mostly of metal. Other than that I mean it is nearly impossible to even count. I mean it is used in cars, travel vehicles, and in so many other ways. I have linked [10][11] other uses of metals and minerals which are mined and extremely important. Mining coal is actually used to generate large amounts of electricity in countries like Pakistan, India and Chile. My opponent never at all enunciated his arguments, I have shown above how no harm can compare to the benefits of mining. My opponent names animals but provides no arguments for it, I should like to tell you that there are not many harmful affects on the environment now, and instead of arguing extensively, since my opponent has not properly argued, I shall only present a source. [12] [1]. http://www.msha.gov... [2]. http://ash.org.uk... [3]. http://www.nma.org... [4]. http://www.economist.com... [5]. http://www.iatp.org... [6]. http://en.wikipedia.org... [7]. http://en.wikipedia.org... [8]. http://en.wikipedia.org... [9]. http://en.wikipedia.org... [10]. http://www.nma.org... [11]. http://mine-engineer.com... [12]. http://www.esri.com... Faithfully Yours, Ajab,