Dear Everyone;
The next time an environmentalist starts spouting off about ravaging Planet Earth site these statistics: Planet Earth is composed of some 1.1 billion cubic kilometers or approximately 260 billlion cubic miles.100 cubic kilometers or roughly 24 cubic miles represents all current mining operations combined on an annual basis for the world as a whole.
If the present annual volume of were to continue, it could do so for the next 100 million years. By that time, a total of 10 billion cubic kilometers or roughly 2.4 billion cubic miles of earth would have been extracted, which would represent a little less than 1 percent of the earth’s total physical volume.
Over mining - not very likely - as it also doesn't take into account advances in technology.
For more on this see this Lew Rockwell.com article.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reisman/reisman15.html
Looking at everything population wise consider this. California covers 155,973 square miles of land area. The world population is 6.6 billion. Let's do some math.
If all the people in the world were settled in Planet California on just the land mass only this would be 42,000 people per square mile. Tokyo has about 15,000 per square mile. New York City has some 26,000 per square mile. It's - a tight fit - not lots of elbow room - but doable and heavy on the telecommuting.
Just everybody don't flush at once.
Ron Getty
SF Libertarian
The next time an environmentalist starts spouting off about
ravaging Planet Earth site these statistics: Planet Earth is
composed of some 1.1 billion cubic kilometers
Ahem. That's trillion, not billion, according to the article.
or approximately 260 billlion cubic miles. 100 cubic kilometers
or roughly 24 cubic miles represents all current mining
operations combined on an annual basis for the world as a whole.
If the present annual volume of were to continue, it could do so
for the next 100 million years. By that time, a total of 10
billion cubic kilometers or roughly 2.4 billion cubic miles of
earth would have been extracted, which would represent a little
less than 1 percent of the earth's total physical volume.
Is one percent of the earth's total physical volume supposed to be
a small amount?? That's huge. All he's saying is that over a huge
period of time, we will mine a huge portion of the earth. What's
interesting about that?
Over mining - not very likely - as it also doesn't take into
account advances in technology.
For more on this see this Lew Rockwell.com article.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reisman/reisman15.html
Much less than one percent of the earth's total physical volume --
if taken from the surface! -- would indeed be devastating to the
environment. The issue is not so much the minerals being removed
and depleted, but the topsoil, trees, and other elements of the
biosphere that are disrupted in the process.
I remember reading a claim somewhere that logging companies have
planted more trees than they've cut in the past century. That's a
more interesting angle to defending the role of capitalism in
protecting the environment. Still, replacing old growth habitats
of tremendous biodiversity with monoculture tree crops for houses
and paper is still hugely troubling.
But these mining numbers are just plain nonsense!
Thanks for posting the article. 
Cheers,
Justin
Dear Justin;
Okay so it's trillion not billion. It's just like Bush describing the national budget a trillion here a trillion there and before you know it starts adding up to real money.
As to the 2.4 billion cubic mile divot dug in the Earth's surface that's spread out over 100 million years. Hopefully this will be done with some thought in mind of not un-balancing the Earth's rotation so we end up spinning out of orbit or worse tilting the wrong way at the wrong time of year and end up with permanent winter or summer.
Besides that 1% of the Earth surface dug up could get filled with the baloney the Bush regime spews everytime it opens it mouth - the Bushitas just keep doing the PhD dance ( Pile Higher and Deeper) and we are talking really big shovels here wielded by them.
As for lumber jacks planting trees why not just build literal rammed earth homes this can be done right now today. Ooops - that would mean taking even more of the Earth - nope no can do. Aha - recycled styrofoam and soda pop cans - there's the ticket - fro environemntally safe homes.
BTW - what are your thoughts about your new roommates from Mongolia with their yurts and goats?
Ron Getty
SF Libertarian