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This is very real and has been an issue for years. I remember when I was younger, watching public TV, and I saw a news report about an elderly lady who was forced to sell her home along with the rest of her village so that they could dig up the entire area for coal. At the time it was a big deal, because she took so long to agree, which got media attention. It was incredibly depressing. It felt dystopian.
every rational part of my brain fighting the 7 year old me inside me who knows Bagger 288 is the coolest thing ever
It is an engineering marvel, indeed, as it is the biggest mobile machine of the world.
Bagger 288 (and its sibling, Bagger 293) are probably the biggest machines which move freely on soil. They're about 225 m long, 96 meters tall and weigh 14 200 tons.
In the length category, the F60 overburden conveyor bridge (which moves on rails) is (was?) several times bigger, at 502 m length. It weighed less, however, at 13,600 tons.
We make logging companies "replant forests" (yes it's not at all the same as the old growth but it's something). Why do we let mining companies completely rape the land and replace nothing? It doesn't even look like they backfill with the unused debris, much less restore topsoil or plant anything.
There are time lapses of this machines movement from satellite / aerial photography and you will see that the soil becomes green again.
Most of the forests in Germany aren’t truly old growth tho. Instead it’s basically all wood plantations
Where I live they are required to rehabilitate the land afterwards, but usually that's after the mine has been running for like 30+ years and by the time they shut down, they do some weird financial trickery and declare bankruptcy despite having made millions in profits the previous decades and then they just walk away and tax payers need to clean up.
Honestly, that's on the government for not either levying the industry, or making them set up a fund to pay for that.
Why do we let mining companies completely rape the land and replace nothing?
The government spend billions to brainwash people and turn them complicit. Check out the "germany rearming" threads to see how even on lemmy plenty of people are happy with the raping.
Here in the UK I know of lots of old mines and quarries that, because the ground is inherently unstable once the mining has finished, the land gets reclaimed as a nature reserve. Think nice walks, wildflowers, native trees, marshlands etc. A lot of effort goes into making habitats for insects, birds and animals.
Whether or not it is all paid for by the mining companies, I don't know.
Underground mining and strip mining are very different in the possibilities to recover.
Both underground mining and strip mining will devastate natural and urban areas in Germany for centuries. For the former black coal and iron mining areas they basically have no solution except to keep the pumps running indefinitely as the flooded underground mines would collapse, causing sinkholes and eating the houses on top. For the strip mining, these will be scars on the earth until geology has taken care of it in a few million years.
It isn't. I guarantee it.
Well, not 100% on this, but maybe because we're an overaged society that elects corrupt politicians rather than accept that change in lifestyle is necessary? Or maybe it is the brainwashing of the Springer-press that continues to vilify the Greens. Maybe a mix of both.
It will be turned into a giant lake once they are done mining. You burn a lot of volume and filling it wil soil again is just not possible
Except they actually do backfill it and plant trees; it's still an ecological horror though
They do backfill, but they obviously lose quite a bit of volume in the process, so they cannot completely fill the hole. The remaining part is usually flooded.
Alternatively, build a flying machine with TNT duplicators
[ilmango intro music] 🥭🥭🥭
Bagger 288! Bagger 288!
The Bagger 288 is there to safeguard all mankind.
The Bagger 288 wreaks total utter devastation.
The Bagger 288 contains an artificial mind.
This mind is full of hatred, violence is its sole vocation.
I love how I know the name Bagger 288 because of a 16 year old meme
Being destroyed by a giant machine is terrible but it did file the proper paperwork first so what can be done at this point?
I hate so much how accurate this is as a metaphor for how many politicians deal with the fascist AfD.
Uhm no bagger-288 was created to protect mankind from godzillas and doom robots from the future.
ok I hate coal and fossil fuels, but this thing is so cool
You can see it from space
Those photos are from planes.
Probably, but the entire idea of "you can see it from space" is stupid anyways. Its only meaningful if its with the naked eye and the distance is specified. You can see anything from space if you have enough optical zoom...
It's crazy watching a time lapse of these massive holes move across the land https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz4a2WyAG68
