Who is Gordon Moore and what does he have against copper? He’s the multibillionaire co-founder of computer chip giant Intel, and he has pledged $2.7 million against a planned mine in the largest known ore body of copper on the planet, Alaska’s Pebble Mine — even though Intel uses tons of copper. As chairman of his private foundation, Moore gave $1.1 million to the Alaska Conservation Foundation for “Pebble mine campaign coordination;” $1 million to the Renewable Resources Coalition for “Pebble mine education and outreach”; and $624,000 to the Nature Conservancy’s Alaska office for “Pebble mine science and risk assessment.”
Moore gave the money and marching orders at the same time in 2008. The mine developers, Pebble Limited Partnership, hadn’t released their proposal at that time and still haven’t released their detailed plan to build and operate the most environmentally sensitive mine in history, careful of the vast salmon runs from Bristol Bay, cognizant of earthquake fault lines, wildlife habitat, native village subsistence hunting, the whole book.
