I have been trying to raise people's awareness of the horrors of the jewelry industry for some time now. Whether it be gold, silver, or precious stones, the mining and making of jewelry is one of the most destuctive practices out there. Not only is it usually extremely bad for the local environment, it can be quite hard on the people involved. In fact, laying the environmental issues aside, the suffering of Third world people at the hands of various mining and jewelry companies is staggering, hellish even.
I saw this article and thought I would share:
http://www.livescience.com/environme...rare_gold.html
I encourage all who read this to do some research, and discover for themselves what an abomination the bling-bling industry really is.