Apollo diamond ( http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html and http://www.apollodiamond.com/ ) proves you don't have to rape nature for diamond. They, very unfortunately, pun intended, have patented their research's discovery of a precipitative crystal growing from plasma cloud, and haven't exactly stormed down the gates when it comes to marketing, so their ripping DeBeers out of supremacy is slow in coming, but it's better than tearing up an ecosystem and geology, etc. And it's not as though DeBeers doesn't sit on a mountain of diamonds artificially milking demand, so actual mining may potentially have a karmic cushion, there, but not really. Anyways.
It's like agriculture and the push for food-grade cosmetics and home interiors, etc., where that nanotech should be replacing agricultural products, just like bioengineering ( http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002338.html ) already is replacing biotechnology, playing by nature's rules even if it uses some unorthodox techniques in doing it.
My personal opinion is that without a consumer culture embracing proper compensation while *rejecting* creator/originator/owner control, that all the advances in survivability for humanity in the world imaginable won't save us in time. Apollo needs to denounce its IP while maintaining record of its prior art to keep anyone *else* from locking them out, and ppl who take their techniques need to credit them and consumers need to care/ask about origination and search around (fine, it's impractical; allowing single parties to lock down ideas is a hell of a lot worse for us *all*) and make sure the ppl who actually did the research work, etc. get paid enough.
What better way than a blog or something to track all of this stuff, to maintain a live network of de facto authorized vendors? Just in the sense that consumers can't just write what I'm saying off as too impractical, even *without* the blog or whatever.
I'm not affiliated with Apollo and never have been, BTW. I'm not, like, some disgruntled former employee/associate or anything.
Um, not that anybody even cares, given my other post's still the only one so far and the whole story's on the homepage so maybe nobody'll bother clicking to the story URL/page to even see this, I just want to make sure ppl don't think I'm ignoring the land mine thing. Use the proceeds Apollo had better pass on to you from their cheaper diamonds (even with research premium tacked on) to donate directly to Adopt a Landmine, no Canadian eco-destruction involved!
Another option: buy used/vintage jewelry.
My fiance and I had lengthy discussions on diamond issues before we got engaged. We ultimately decided that while tundra (Canadian) diamonds are pretty, it's easy for any bloke with a laser to fake the imprint and it's not really the diamond that counts anyway.
He got me a white sapphire, which is just as beautiful, if not more so. The money we saved will go toward a house! ;-) I couldn't be happier.
