Im prefacing my argument on the premise that it is economically feasible to do so. That being said, there is no reason not to mine the moon. It is chuck of dead worthless rock with nobody living on it. Better to mine there where it is significantly less environmentally damaging than here where we actually live. Also, mining the moon might be a very necessary endeavor if we plan to continue on further into space. If we can mine some of the things needed for further exploration there, it makes a lunar colony that much more self-sufficient and important just like outposts when humanity was discovering the rest of the planet.

A lot of my opponents examples of mining degradation such as mountaintop removal and polluted rivers really only apply to the Earth and its living ecosystems, not to the moon. And there are no communities to be destroyed on the moon. But to argue your greater point: mining, over-mining, and mining methods should be given consideration when designing whatever economic system we design for the moon. That being said, I can use the human greed excess/consequences argument against a lot of things. It is not an argument in and of itself not to mine the moon period, just something to hazard against. There is no evidence that on the scale that humans work on, even on industrial scales, that mining the moon would cause any sort of real climate consequences on Earth. You would need to reduce the mass of the moon many, many, times for there to be an impact on the tides. You say there is no restoration or cleanup crew, for what, to put the dust and rocks back? The severity of the same mining on Earth is loads more damaging there due to the reasons you stated so if we need the materials, better to do it on the moon than Earth. Lastly, the legalisms can be hammered out if we start doing it and companies bending rules are not unique to moon mining. It is again, something to hazard against, not an argument in and of itself not to.

You will get no argument from me that the Moon has great knowledge in it and that is certainly something we can again, try to hazard against if we try to mine it. The reason we were so careful about microbes is because we really weren't sure at the time about the exact conditions on the moon and it supporting life or even if it had life to begin with. So no, you wouldn't want to confound scientific findings looking for life on the moon by introducing your own. That is not strictly the case anymore though. While we are careful, moon spacecraft today do not need strict sanitizing procedures because we now know that it is highly unlikely that any sort of Earth based microbe will survive there and we are pretty sure that it is lifeless anyways. Where we would be more careful again in the future is Mars and certain planet's moons where it is much more likely life exists. How would you even get a dust storm to a sufficient size where it would mess with lunar operations for decades? The moon has gravity, a lot of it will just fall down rather quickly. Even if it had escape velocity, it would just go out into space. You need an atmosphere to create dust clouds like we have on Earth due to uplift requirements to keep it aloft and mixed. Nobody is putting the cart before the horse. The Artemis missions and the Mars missions envision an orbiting lunar base and eventually a ground base. We are here, it is coming. And I personally am grateful that Nasa will be the first ones there for all of the potential bad reasons you mentioned.

And again, we can hazard against destroying areas of the moon with scientific value or only mine in areas where we have already explored. I agree that human greed and indifference to consequences are real concerns but those concerns can be addressed. None of these are a reason in and of itself not to mine the moon, just things we need to consider. You say it has cultural and scientific value while belittling the idea of it being a part of our future Mars missions. The Artemis and future Mars missions are valid scientific and cultural endeavors also. I will concede that mining on the moon will coincide with mining on Earth simultaneously. But I will argue that if we had a choice between getting our Lunar/Mars stuff from Earth or from the Moon, it is less damaging on the Moon.

Im not eager to protect the moon from microbes, I was describing the reasons why Nasa was initially hesitant about microbes during the Apollo era. On the dust issue, you are just generally wrong. The general gravitational acceleration on the moon is around 1.6 m/s^2. The dust would fall back down within a short amount of time. Maybe you were just seeing dust kicked up by the astronauts? As for your "Nasa will be careful" rebuttal. You didnt actually rebut against Nasa but a general warning against oil and mining companies. And again, I agree and that is something that we can deal with when this starts coming closer to reality. If we prefaced every decision on the absolute worst of humanity every single time, nothing would get done. Lets see the proposals first and then we can make a much more informed opinion.