Difference between footnote and endnote7/24/2023 Second, that there is an element of social injustice and wilful ignorance in the simplistic, uncritical way that mercury pollution is being addressed as an environmental emergency in the twenty-first century. First, that there is a yawning discrepancy between polished but myopic mining heritage presentations that dwell on technical achievements and nation-building projects, and the painful histories of mercury use and pollution that lurk behind this heritage. The article argues that whilst mercury pollution is invoked as the rationale for interventions to contemporary artisanal and small-scale gold mining in the Global South, the same harms are not identified at gold rush heritage sites in the Global North, even when local land management agencies are grappling with the toxic legacies of past mercury use at these heritage sites. It examines the deep past of mercury use in global gold rush histories, and their interrelationship, through the examples of early modern Iberian extraction projects in New Spain, the “gold rush” mining operations of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and reactions to current artisanal and small-scale gold mining in the Global South to reveal the synergy that emerges at the intersection of the history of chemistry and environmental history. This article addresses such a lack of historical context, and its ramifications. ![]() To a great extent, the presence of mercury in the environment is a consequence of gold mining practices – past and present – although the linkage is not easy to recognise without a historical framework in place. ![]() Mercury is a pervasive and harmful feature of the biosphere.
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