we should make the counterplan

I studied about mercury's effects in high school. I learned about Minamata disease, which made people have mental illness and even die. So we try to not use mercury. But many people use mercury without thinking about the problem. Especially in the Amazon, the most serious problem is mercury pollution. Because of that, the ecosystem and humans have seriously suffered. We don't know how much mercury we have, and as time goes by, the mercury brings disease. Most of the mercury in the Amazon comes from gold mining (Ryan.2006). When gold miners extract the gold, they use mercury. After extracting, the leftover, which contains the mercury, is thrown into the river, and the mercury is oxidized into the methymercury., so the fish and Amazon villagers drink the water with the mercury. And they have a high mercury level (Harada, et al. 2001). These levels affect not only the present age, but also the next generation, because of contaminaion. We should not delay solving the mercury problem. After time passes, more problems will occur and the Amazon will be in a dangerous situation.

To solve the mercury problem, we should make and alternative plan. If we neglect the problem, we can face the second Minamata disease incident.

First of all, we should stop gold miners from using the mercury. The gold miners don't think about what will happen after using mercury. So they throw out the leftover into the water. If the mercury is in the water, the mercury turns into the methylmercury. The methylmercury is poisonous and we can't distribute that, so the fish and humans drink and use it. When the Amazon villagers boil the water with mercury, the possibility of death is high because mercury vapor makes people's skin melt. Flowing mercury into the water is the most dangerous. So we should prevent the gold miners from using the mercury.

Second, we should restrict the amount of the gold mining. Unrestricted gold mining makes mercury pollution. It there are limits on gold mining, using mercury also will decrease. And gold mining harms the Amazon, so the autopurification can't occur, so pollution can't be removed. For example, to gain the gold the gold miners bump the Amazon because they need the dust, not the ore. Therefore they destroy the forest of the Amazon. If there is a restriction on gold mining, we not only decrease the use of mercury, but also protect the Amazon.

Finally, we should use lots of resources to find another method. They could invest in the making of a chemical to stop using mercury. For example, using chlorination can separate the gold from the gold ore. If the chlorination gas is put into the melting gold, we can get pure gold. Another method is using gold cyanide liquid. If the oxygen goes into the liquid, the gold separates from the liquid. In this way, we can find another method and we can't harm the people and environment.

Some people argue that improving Brazil’s competitive power is more important than protecting the Amazon. To solve the foreign currency problem, Brazil should permit unlimited gold mining. But protecting Amazon, by limiting gold mining can develop Brazil by the tourist industry. They should think about the future. If Brazil admits a large quantitiy of gold mining to make a high state economy, they will have a more serious problem on humans and ecosystem like getting the mercury disease.

In conclusion, we should stop gold miners from using the mercury. And we should restrict the amount of the gold mining and use lots of resources to find another method. Not using mercury is good for both ecosystem and humans. No more using mercury can prevent the spreading mercury's effect.

Reference

Coghlan, A. (1994, March 12). Midas touch could end Amazon's pollution. Newscientist. com. Retrieved October 23, 2007, from http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg14119161.500&print=true

Harada et al. (2001, October 27). Mercury pollution in the Tapajos River basin, Amazon: mercury level o f head hair and health effects. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ Retrieved November 03, 2007 from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=11686639&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google

Ryan, F.(2006). The Amazon rain forest. web.mit.edu/ Retrieved November 4, 2007 from http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2006/teams/furness/mercury.html