It's a familiar image: an Antarctic glacier melting in unprecedented warmth. The relentless process goes on without much visible change, until gradually, worn away beneath, the glacier can no longer hold together. The strain becomes too much. The ice splits. Another gigantic iceberg – an object so big that the Earth's maps must be redrawn – falls into the sea.
Something similar is happening in the mining industry, and the cause is the same: climate change. BHP, the world's largest mining company, has given notice to three major industry bodies of which it is a member – the Minerals Council of Australia, the World Coal Association and the US Chamber of Commerce – that it may have to break away. BHP has reviewed the policies and statements on climate change of all the industry bodies it belongs to, and has found these three act in support of views seriously at variance with its own position. That means, in effect, that it has been paying considerable sums to industry representatives who are lobbying against the company's interests on the issue. If they don't stop, a split is inevitable.
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