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Mining, Whining, and Pining

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Categories: Messages and statements; Human nature; Ethics and laws; Commerce and business

Word count/read time: 459 words; 2 minutes

The electric (vehicle) revolution is supposed to take over the world. Clean energy, they say. New technologies increase battery efficiency more than ever. With that comes a bevy of problems no one seems to have considered, ones that make the pollution and destruction from the industrial revolution look like piddly cakes.

Virtually none of the minerals we need have been extracted from the earth yet. Some reliable estimates conclude we will mine more material in the next few decades than we have in our entire history! It will only increase as we ecocidically drain natural resources like we have done countless times. It'll be neither cleaner nor more socially responsible than the original blood minerals.

What we have learned from history about decimating resources to get minerals will be fully applied to modern mining techniques. Not by correcting our errors but going further than we did before. In other words, these horrible mining practices have only been practice for doing it more destructively and distributing the wealth more unequally.

We have gotten better at greenwashing lies coupled with corruption and conspiracies wreaking exponentially more destruction. Our greed gives nary a thought about responsibility. Why bother when we can offload the catastrophe to poor countries without any oversight or consequences?

Now, we use technology as a sinister tool: fracking, shale oil extraction, natural gas purging. Transporting these products via nasty pipelines and unsafe trains adds to the insult. Greenwashing will be weaponized to hide the horrors of the new reality while complacent and avaricious politicians allow it courtesy of lucrative contracts and legal bribes, i.e. campaign donations.

History has shown the dominant tribe on earth will take these minerals, whether USA, China, India, a coalition of first-world countries (U.N.), etc. One way or another, whether by brute force or manipulation, they will mine whatever, however, and wherever they want because there's too much money and power at stake.

The new rage is deep sea mining (here and here). We don't understand an iota of what happens in this ecosystem but we still destroy and exploit it for profit. Since the effects will be hidden from plain sight, when they eventually "surface" it will be too late to mitigate the problems.

Then we'll whine when we see the net effect as our world is just not capable of withstanding another assault on its resources without regard to wildlife connectivity, climate, environment, habitats, and socially responsible and equitable distribution of the profits.

Pine we will for the way things used to be, when it was "OK" to slaughter entire tribes and forcibly displace indigenous people while clear-cutting rainforests. You know, the old school way of doing things. Money and profits will be all that remain...again. Are we really prepared for what's coming?

Posted by M: April 15, 2023

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