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Mining, Whining, and Pining

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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 state 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.

We are in the infancy of figuring out how to dispose of high-tech batteries: How to safely process the toxic chemicals, what costs, where to put the waste products once "cleaned up."

You might think we learned to avoid the damage from previous poor practices, never mind illegal mining. The only thing we have learned, which will be evident on a wholesale level, is better greenwashing with nary a thought about responsibility. Why bother when we can offload the catastrophe to poor countries without any oversight or consequences?

Instead, 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 corrupt 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. We don't understand an iota of what happens in such ecosystems but we still destroy and exploit them for profit. It can only be far worse, more destructive, and more costly in all aspects. 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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