Since some years ago, in Colombia, have been there an unprecedented growing of mining activities. There are different factors involved in this growing but two of the most remarkable are the high minerals demand worldwide, that pushes the prices to the top, and the improved security conditions in Colombia, a great concern for the people in the country, not just for obvious reasons, but also because the role that this factor plays in order to attract foreign inversion.
Just for quoting some examples, Colombia exports coal in an amount that places it tenth in the world, and represents 88% of its total mining activity; The country is exporting also nickel and gold to the international markets, contributing with 4.53% of nickel world production, and to the 1.2% of world production of gold.
As the former Minister of Mines and Energy of Colombia said, “our mineral exports reached levels of 8 billions dollars, which represents 25% of the total colombian exports, and at the same time, the foreign direct investment has increased from 470 million dollars in 2002 to 3.2 billion in 2009”. This huge incoming flow of money represents an enhance of nearly 1.5% in the weight of the contribution of mining activities to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) during the last decade.
Therefore, the government of the fourth biggest economy in the region has referred to mining industry as one fundamental economic locomotive, since from its campaign to elections in 2010 the present government brandished a thesis based in five locomotives that's supposed would boost the economic growth of Colombia; these are innovation, housing construction, building of new infrastructure, mining, and agriculture. The strengthening of these five locomotives would allow to Colombia the achievement of a place in the privileged group of economies with economic growths above 5% annually.
It seems an unsolvable dilemma
Colombia is a nation with a lot of unsatisfied needs, for example a safe drinking-water supply in the whole country, suitable infrastructure of roads and transportation in order to comply the requirements of new free trade agreements, adequate access to the public health services, reduction of unemployment, and so on. All the promises around how is going to be achieved the improvement of the life conditions, specifically those related with the development locomotives, sounds very encouraging, not just for the government, but also for the academics, economists, analysts, and the population that is the most concerned sector in this case. Nevertheless, there is a very strong skeptic feeling in the air related with the very negative effects that the mining activities can lead.
The exploitation of the mineral ores requires of a very deep, and even aggressive, intervention on the natural environments on they are stored; in the deepest layers of the subsoil. It is required excavate and remove vegetal and mineral coats, including the wealthy biodiverse environment, that are presently on the surface. The existence of mining activities in this places could mean the extinction of an immeasurable number of species, and natural habitats, without mention the disappearance of key sources of water for the human consumption and the possible irreversible deterioration and contamination of the air, surface and groundwater, soil and subsoil.
This situation seems an almost unsolvable dilemma, or at least one very difficult to sort out. Because, at least in theory, the incomes generated by the businesses, economic goods, and services associated with mining industry, that are of a considerable size, could mean a very “powerful fuel” to the economy, but, on the other hand, it is not conceivable to think in destroy and miss this wonderful and unique natural heritage, of which we are just temporary owners.
Does Thermodynamics has something to say to us?
One question that is necessary to make is if it is really feasible get a sustained economic growth indefinitely?, since this is a process, like any in the universe, that is limited by the restrictions established in the second law of thermodynamics. According to this last statement it is not possible to obtain higher useful work for our society than that which we are allowed to get from our fuels and present sources of energy, and the rest of the energy will be not available for further transformations.
In words of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, economist that wrote about this topic in 1971 in The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, this means that useful, low-entropy energy and materials are dissipated in transformations that occur in economic processes, and they return to the environment as high-entropy wastes. The amount of energy is the same at the end of the process, but the availability of useful energy is lesser.
In consequence it won’t be possible to increase economic growth indefinitely. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) cannot increase eternally. We are condemned to go just till the second law of thermodynamics, and the scarcity of resources, enable us.
But in order to make consistent social and infrastructural reversals, that means meet the basic needs of the whole increasing population, it is necessary get always increasing GDP. In other words, the achievement of a prolonged improvement of the life conditions in our societies, it is just possible in a limited horizon of time.
The previous reasoning can be accompanied also by the forecast of a deterioration of the environment and its quality. The potential damage to the environment, in case of an arbitrarily and carefulness exploitation of the resources, is going to be maximized. Even in the best case, with a very responsible supervision and control of the damages derived by the industrial and resource extraction activities, this means that a situation of deterioration of the environment is unavoidable if the economic growth is increased systematically and in a sustained way.
It is necessary to do something in order to satisfy present needs
The compliance of the second law of thermodynamics is out of discussion. But we can try to check out our main goals as society, those which points to economic growth and the requirement of an sustained increase in the GDP. Then is necessary to make a question, Is our society ready to change course and stop growing?, and also, Is willing to meet the minimum needs of all its members?.
It is not practical and realistic to think that mankind is going to come back to the caverns. Even in case that this were thus, it is not possible to come back to the initial state of the system, understood as the whole planet earth, to exactly the same initial conditions, or in other words, to return to the zero damage environmental situation. By the way, this another form of the second law.
Zero economic growth is another idea that some economists and scientists are supporting some time ago. It establishes that since there is no possibility to reverse the system, then is required to maintain a constant size of the economy in order to don’t affect and compromise the availability of energy and resources for our society, and don’t affect very deeply the quality of the environment.
The success of this last thesis depends on a very complex relationship between different aspects, for example the population growth, the capitalist system itself, the intrinsic perception of humanity on the environment, and this is the most relevant obstacle for the achieving of a state of zero economic growth. It seems to be a very desirable state, but even without violate the physics laws, it is almost an idealistic state whose achievement is, at least till now, subject to very strong constraints of a practical nature.
Then, trying to be more pragmatic, we can not avoid the second law of thermodynamics, but is impractical to think in coming back to the idyllic good savage way of life; and a zero economic growth scheme of our society is a starry-eyed concept. Therefore, in the context of the capitalist system, is necessary to achieve economic growth in order meet the improvement of almost all of the most pressing needs of the population.
Of course, this economic growth cannot be allowed without restrictions to the damages caused on the environment, and at least could be minimized. Even the increasing government budget can afford the amelioration of the control capacity of its environmental and public health authorities, since the state has more economic resources to devote to these functions. So, contrary to the general idea that tends put the economic growth against the environmental quality, it follows that can be beneficial to the environmental protection, at least in the short term.
There is no dilemma, we have to have economic growth in order to enhance life conditions, but, for sure, this cannot be achieved to any price. The colombian case is paradigmatic, an impressive amount of companies and big budgets interested in making money on the base of the extraction of oil, coal, natural gas, nickel, and another different mineral ores; a state with a very deep convincement that the “mining locomotive” is a key in the strengthening of the Colombian economy; a very fierce opposition of the public opinion, specially concerned about the natural habitats and resources, like drinking water, that can be damaged by the uncontrolled or undiscriminated activity with occurrence of the mining projects; a very questionable ability of the environmental authorities to control and make the required monitoring, and finally a huge amount of problems to solve. All these factors provide an opportunity to do something better than just opposing to any project, but to develop suitable tools and effective mechanisms for exercise of the authority in terms of environmental protection.
Industry, the real boost of the economy
Nevertheless, traditionally the mining industry it is not one that characterizes by its very huge contributions to the development of the directly affected communities. Additionally, the money and investments of the royalties, derived from different sources, in Colombia are characterized by corruption in its use. According to the National Department of Planning (DNP) of Colombia of the 746 municipalities that receive royalties, none has the minimum coverage in water supply and sewerage. And even, populations receiving more than USD 4000 per capita, have high levels of poverty in their territory.
Besides, one can think that the mining industry is not a an indispensable activity. The real boost to the economy has to come from the strengthening of productive industrial sector, that generates new, innovative and valuable goods for the society. This makes a lot of sense if one thinks that Colombia have chosen to be immersed in different free trading agreements that forces the country to do things better, and promotes self-improvement and competitiveness. This should be the most important locomotive, that turns the country in a restless and productive society, unlike those who focus their development in activities such as mining.
