Friday, January 16, 2009

The gift of gold?

A copy of National Geographic lies unread on the table. I tidy up around it. It’s been there for weeks; a reminder of Christmas past. Carbonlite wanders into the room and sprawles down on the sofa. I grab the magazine.
“I’ll just take this for recyling,” I say pointedly.
“But you haven’t read it yet,” he exclaims.
“It’s my magazine,” I tell him. My only Christmas present. I start to flick through it, grumbling under my breath how friends got expensive handbags and gold jewellery, while I got a magazine. Not even a year’s subscription, just a magazine. Even baby Jesus got gold for Christmas. A pair of M and S slippers would have been fine. Why does even my Christmas present have to be an education?

At the recycling bin, I pause. Something in this glossy magazine is glinting at me. It’s a global obsession that’s worth more than human life. A glittering industry that’s rotten to the core. In the world’s most remote places, whole families risk their lives so we can have cheap earrings. To extract a single ounce of gold, the amount in a typical wedding ring, 250 tons of rock and ore are taken from the ground, from vast open pit mines where accidents are commonplace, and chemical or mercury poisoning is a daily hazard. Villagers in the high altitudes of Peru work for 30 days a month for free; dirty, backbreaking work, without any pay. On the 31st day their reward is a single shift, of four hours or maybe a little more, where they are granted permission to haul out and take away as much rock as their shoulders can bear. With a bit of luck this sack may contain nuggets galore and make them instant millionaires. More commonly it contains nothing, or perhaps a few dollars of gold flecks which will barely feed their family, once miller and merchant have been paid.

All that human misery and exploitation. But what of the environment? Thanks to huge mining corporations, the gold now left in our world only exists as traces in remote and fragile corners. What was once untouched rainforest housing thousands of species is now razed and turned into pits that can be seen from space. Diggers carry out tons of earth each day in the search for the golden grail. The gold is processed with the help of mercury, and the chemical effluent is piped straight to the bottom of the sea.

I fiddle with my wedding ring. I take it off. I roll it around in my palm, examining its texture and shape for the first time in years. I look at how the light falls on it, and smile when I read the inscription. Sure, its precious. Sure it’s valuable. The question is, is this symbol of our union worth the human and environmental sacrifice that it took to make it? I put it on the table. I leave the room. My ring finger feels strange. I haven’t taken my wedding ring off in almost a decade. Ten years? Where did that go.
“I’m going for a bath. I’ve left something on the table for you,” I call to Carbonlite in the living room. He’ll either think I’ve read the feature and be pleased I’ve decided to do something about it, or he’ll think I’m leaving him, and might reassess what I’m worth.

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