LeCain’s argument is that even when a big environmental problem is fixed, there is a big chance that the solution will still cause other problems to arise. Such as creating a fix for the town of Duckworth, they fixed the sulfur dioxide emissions into sulfuric acid that was then made into fertilizer but after time, the excess fertilizer was run-off and getting into the towns water supply. LeCain said that the environement loses when everyone wins.
Technically, humans do not need copper and other mined minerals because there was thriving human life well before mining first took place. Though we don’t need it, it gives us products that make a lot of things way easier and improve our standard of living. From giving us the upper hand constructing roads and automobiles, and even our phones, there are a lot of things mining helps us with but at a pretty big cost. I fully agree with LeCain in his ideas around how to stop the pollution in mining, or at least work towards making it better. He gives concrete examples on failures that have happened in the mining world but with all of those failures, there was a lot learned. These are big problems and with time and as science advances, small problems can most likely be tackled one at a time.