So much of mining these days is political, from initial geological investigation to mine closure. Just getting first access to land to sniff around these days is far from easy on any continent of the globe. ‘Environment’ is generally the primary currency of critique and debate and we do not have too many friends out there right now. What is going on here and what are we doing about it? This paper will explore the imperative to deal with this as an urgent if not a survival issue for our industry. It will pose as a fundamental issue the age-old dichotomy of the two cultures: science/humanities, and what this has meant for us in how we deal with the radically new political and social environment for mining in the 21st century.