Which environmental disaster would be preferable: the disasters supposedly caused by fossil fuels, or the multiple disasters caused by lithium mining and REE’s, in which those disasters are both environmental and human in nature? To be clear: “human” means slave labor. If the inclusion of lithium-ion batteries and their uber-filthy production methods on a list of environmental disasters doesn’t sound familiar, it may sometime in the future. That depends heavily on biased whores in MSM, and whether they feel like reporting on it or not.
That means never.
The production of batteries for electric vehicles requires mining for lithium and other rare Earth elements, a process which isn’t exactly what one would call environmentally friendly. If lithium mining and production were limited to making batteries for cell phones and other electronic gadgets, the industrial waste could be limited to an acceptable level. Unfortunately, world governments are planning to increase the production to meet future demand for EV batteries (cobalt alone will increase in demand by about 2000%). There is a rather small number of EV’s on the road currently, and with the astronomical increase of EV’s needed to satisfy government diktats, it seems unlikely that the residents of these mining sectors will ever be able to live in peace again. Adding to this misery is the involvement of the Chinese Communist Party, which stands to gain from all of this, environmental and biological cataclysms be damned.
Governments are banning internal combustion engines and forcing the automotive companies to make these vehicles, so lithium production is going to skyrocket. Before governments grow out of control, human rights are banned, the energy sector is dismantled (here is what could have been), the economy is crushed, animal populations are devastated, EV’s mandated, combustion engines are outlawed, gas stoves are banned, China is enriched, undependable alternative energy sources are forced upon the public, fertilizers are removed from sale and herds are culled (thereby creating food shortages), insane propositions are put forth, people are killed, and a commitment to eating crickets is made, it may be worthwhile to consider that battery powered everything could lead to environmental issues that are more devastating than fossil fuels. In fact, if the truth could be known, lithium mining could potentially become the next protest for the far left. If they become educated about the risks, perhaps they’ll be less inclined to sabotage fossil fuels.
The Process of Extracting Lithium is Filthy
South America is home to some of the richest lithium deposits in the world. The lithium required to make batteries for many things, including EV’s that will increase in dramatic numbers over the next few years, is somewhat harmful to the environment. Or to phrase it correctly: lithium mining is extremely destructive to the environment.
In Chile, a grid of multi-colored poisonous water pools threatens the water supply, degrades the soil, and damages ecosystems. The evaporation pools are colorful and visually striking despite their devastating nature. Lithium extraction and processing requires that the minerals are evaporated in large pools of water. According to a story on Euronews:
Removing these raw materials can result in soil degradation, water shortages, biodiversity loss, damage to ecosystem functions and an increase in global warming.
Global warming is the very thing that so-called “green energy sources” are supposed to prevent. The story also states:
In Chile’s Atacama salt flats, mining consumes, contaminates, and diverts scarce water resources away from local communities. The production of lithium through evaporation ponds uses a lot of water - around 21 million liters per day. Approximately 2.2 million liters of water is needed to produce one ton of lithium.
The Atacama Salt Flats is a dry region, and inhabitants need all the water they can get for their agriculture production and other obvious reasons. Because of the mining there, the water so desperately needed for residents is being used and contaminated by the extraction process. There are areas where ground water is being consumed and contaminated, and trees and flamingo populations are dying off. It seems that the mineral will be extracted regardless of the environmental consequences:
Augusto Pinochet declared the metal a ‘strategic resource’ for its potential use in nuclear bombs.
The article cites a report from Friends of the Earth stating that lithium extraction is harmful to the soil and produces air contamination. The report says that with rising demand, the impacts of the mining are:
“Increasingly affecting communities where this harmful extraction takes place, jeopardizing their access to water. The extraction of lithium has caused water-related conflicts with different communities. After South America (chiefly Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina) the next biggest lithium-producing country is the United States, followed closely by Australia and China. Other countries with smaller reserves are Zimbabwe, Brazil, and the only European nation, Portugal.”
A separate story tells of a municipality in Portugal that filed an injunction to stop exploration. The residents are concerned that the mines will:
Interfere with the area’s central irrigation system, posing a threat to one of the region’s leading industries, the agri-food sector.
The approval was given by the government despite the environmental concerns voiced by local residents. The story continues:
According to a London based mining company Savannah Resources, Portugal has 60,000 tons of known lithium reserves. Lithium has become a crucial ore metal, having been used for decades in the electronics and pharmaceutical industries. But its mining may contribute to deforestation and air pollution, which will have a negative impact on many local populations.
The citizens of Portugal are not in favor of this mining, to understate the issue.
The situation in China is even worse. Citing a report from the website WIRED,greencarfuture.com states:
“At a mine in Jiangxi, China, workers use ammonium sulfate poured into big holes to dissolve the clay. What’s left is hauled out of the ever-expanding hole, before being run through multiple acid baths to dissolve other unwanted compounds. The resulting compounds are baked in a kiln, finally revealing the rare metals required in electric car batteries. Just 0.2% of the result is the rare metals; the other 99.8% is waste. This 99.8% waste earth (and other compounds) – which is now contaminated with toxic material – is dumped back into the originally-created holes.”
Another article on Euronews highlights the problems posed by REE’s:
There are also ecological question marks over the components used in electric cars, including the battery and the use of rare-earth metals.
One such rare-earth metal is neodymium, which is used to make very strong magnets found in all types of electric motors.
The mining of such elements generates thorium contamination - a radioactive element found in the metals that can negatively affect the surrounding environment.
Mountain Pass, the biggest rare-earth mine in the US, sits near the national reserve of Mojave Desert in California.
Between 1965 and 1995, it was the world's main supplier of rare-earth elements. However, the extraction of the metals came at a high price for the Californian wilderness. A federal investigation in the 1990s found about 2.300 litres of radioactive and other hazardous wastewater had been dumped into the desert soil.
The company deemed responsible paid a fine of €1.3 million. Nevertheless, it obtained another 30-year permit for rare earths extraction in the California region.
Another report cites information from an article by a geochemist named Oliver Pourret:
"Besides, Co is highly toxic and directly impacts human health, given that there is an elevated Co exposure in the general population of southern D.R. Congo."
A new lithium mine is being opened in France that will supposedly supply 700,000 EV batteries per year:
To achieve climate neutrality by mid-century, the EU will require 18 times more lithium than it currently uses by 2030 and almost 60 times more by 2050.
The Problem is (Deliberately) Ignored; The Wrong Solutions are Proposed
If the plan is to replace every vehicle on the road with an electric vehicle, there is logically going to be an increase in demand for batteries. This means an increase in lithium mining, which requires higher levels of water consumption and more damage to local communities.
There doesn’t seem to be much concern for the impact that lithium mining is having on the environment. Is it lack of concern, or lack of awareness? More like lack of reporting, as usual. Why does there seem to be a lack of interest in reporting this? Because it’s a deliberate media silence. Leave it to the prostitute media to lead the public astray.
What is going to happen when the entire world switches to driving EV’s, if it’s even possible to catch up with the demand for so many cars created by the fictional existential threat from so-calledclimate change? If long gas station lines are bad, what would backed-up EV charging station lines look like? EV’s take hours to charge.
This information will obviously fall on deaf authoritarian ears. The globalists will not abandon their agenda and their useful idiot army will not concede defeat. Instead, they will double down as always, as the far left is so fond of doing. Additionally, a growing number of malevolent individuals, including scientists that have perverted science with bigoted views against their dissenting colleagues, have forgotten that science is never settled (“settled science” is a disingenuous and authoritarian attitude; no scientist worth a squirt of piss would ever utter something so reprehensible).
Multiple groups and individuals have admitted to fomenting societal decline in order to accomplish their disturbing plans. A report known as the Jaffe Memo from 1969 encourages the indoctrination of unnatural behaviors and the destruction of the family unit as justified means of population control, with the environment stated as one of the reasons.
The green cult also admitted that it was all a power grab in writing. Here is the Club of Rome, in their own words:
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill...All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself.
It seems the power grab is now complete, as they have done just what they have set out to do. It is discomforting, to say the least, to hear useful idiots chanting that repulsive phrase “humans are a cancer on the planet”, or some other imbecilic version involving mankind being somehow unworthy of living on Earth.
“Never admit wrong”, as some narcissistic people would say. To finish this repugnance: “it’s a sign of weakness”. Or in the case of the green cult, a sign of humanitarian crimes. They will admit nothing out loud and insist that the existence of their Mein Kampf is “conspiracy theory”. Watch them double down. It’s inevitable. And as for their drooling bobble head converts, they’ll eat it up as gospel. One must wonder what word or phrase the prostitute media will be parroting to defend it? Never mind; there will be no admission of anything, especially a written and stated goal of twisting the population into submission over a crisis they fabricated. The term has even been changed from “climate change” to “climate crisis”, as a crisis can always be met with sweeping government powers while the Constitution is used for toilet paper.
What Will the Future of Environmentalism Look Like?
Will there be an emergence of true environmentalists that are genuinely concerned with the well-being of our planet? Will the green cult mutate into anti-lithium protestors? The former might be probable, but the latter is impossible due to the Branch Davidian level of loyalty the green movement has to their beloved “science”. Their science is settled; anyone challenging it is now a “climate change denier” (funny how these eco-bigots have time to create slurs, emit gas of their own, while the “climate crisis” is raging over the Earth). Should this be filed under ‘case closed'? Again, a news media that is all too eager to ignore what they don’t want the public to know has done just that. Move along. Nothing to see here.
If REE’s pose no danger to the Earth whatsoever, why the hell hasn’t the media gone to a lithium mine and taken some pictures? It’s not harmful, right? Perhaps they don’t want to find out the truth and be forced to admit that the repulsive restrictions their leftist puppet masters have placed on the energy sector and the ability to drive whatever the hell one wants to drive were misguided at best. Why would the mining and production of pollution continue to spread while these evaporation pools leach into water sources and poison the air? Why wouldn’t they change tactics when they know that they are going down the wrong path?
Perhaps it has something to do with seeing how the sausage is made, and where. If it can be kept out of sight, it can be kept out of mind. And if it can be kept from the public, those responsible will just wash their hands of the whole affair. The media is of course a key player in all of this, and a willing ally to the green cult.
The apparent disdain over being labeled a conspiracy theorist (what else could it be?) has reached such a level of naïveté and ludicrous denials, that governments and the UN are sabotaging food supplies and idiots are considering eating insects to avoid the “climate crisis”. Why are people willing to eat crickets just to shuffle the problem off to another place? Why should humans demote themselves from ruling the food chain? If fools are willing to make such sacrifices for the environment, they should know that those new EV’s are causing an equal or perhaps greater amount of damage to the planet as the old gas guzzler. That much despised fracking rig in their hometown has an evaporation field counterpart in South America. Electric, wind, and solar are all destructive to biological life and the environment in some way.
Areas of the US are slated for lithium extraction as the push for “alternative energy” continues. What will these areas look like when the evaporation fields appear? A lot more colorful for sure. Will the protests start? Maybe. Until then, maybe it can be chalked up to the NIMBY rule. “It isn’t our communities that are having our air and water poisoned with lithium extraction. No, excess water usage for lithium evaporation isn’t going to affect us (yet) and cause a shortage of water due to the overconsumption and poisoning of otherwise clean drinkable water,” or so the reasoning goes. No, South America is far away from environmental “activists” who shed rivers of tears about fracking in their backyard, miles away from the evaporation pools, and therefore unable to witness the poison that is leaching into the soil. The harmful emissions emanating from the radioactive evaporation pools and into the air will be invisible to leftists that worship MSM as the arbiters of truth.
Never mind that they just moved the problem to someone else’s backyard, and in a completely destructive manner. What will the excuse be when the mines appear in backyards across the US, and they are impossible to ignore? Will the Jonestown level of loyalty on the part of the green cult allow these leftists or their comrades in MSM to investigate environmental disasters caused by lithium mining and other REE’s? Will they start picketing? Or (more likely) will they work overtime to decry the evidence as “disinformation” and censor it from every media platform, all to avoid admitting they were wrong? Will the protesters in Portugal be transformed into “right wing extremists” by the prostitute media? One must wonder how the people suffering in Portugal will react to being dismissed as “climate deniers”, while their land is raped of resources and their water supply is consumed and poisoned?
The Authoritarian Principles
Who would crack first in a fantasy scenario in which the media, activists, and government were forced to tell the truth regarding their con?
Would it be the media, when they are ordered to report the facts that they ignored about the impact of EV battery production on the planet? Not likely: they’ve been ignoring facts for decades, including whether climate change is actually a problem or not. The degree of nonexistent news coverage concerning the raping of land and natural resources by mining for lithium and other pollutants has increased the desperation of leftists to insane levels. The “climate crisis” is spreading instead of being unmasked as the dangerous nonsense that it is. Even internet usage isn’t safe from the green gestapo. This unhinged, yet hilarious article blames Google for “40% of the internet’s carbon footprint”. That is correct: the internet apparently has a “carbon footprint”, and it may be larger than Al Gore’s.
Would it be the climate change “activists” and their handlers, when they are compelled to admit the filthy process and begin protesting? No way: they’ve been predicting failed apocalypses for years. They have persevered for decades despite their losing record. Their shameless support for this conspiracy theory will not wane, even when their “science” continues to fail them. Their bigotry will not falter but gain steam as their claims are proven false.
Would the government come clean? Hell no. Giving control over all aspects of life to an incompetent, corrupt and increasingly malevolent government, with marching orders from the fringes of the far left, is antithetical to human rights. A government that is so out of control that it has the power to dictate automobile choices, which type of furnace the public can legally own, which type of stove citizens are allowed by “law”, whether humans have the right to consume the food products of their choosing, and which words are allowed to be spoken regarding the issue, is a government that will make their citizens do anything. No level of depravity is too much for a regime that bows to theinsane, as this story from Stanford University argues for “removing barriers” (removing the legislative process and, essentially, the American people from the conversation) to the process of implementing infantile “green policies”.
The answer is none of the above. The media will never admit that they were ignoring a story; they will double down, followed by a declaration that there is nothing to the report because the sources are untrustworthy or “denying science”, and the rest of the country is guilty of believing in “conspiracy theories”. Truth will be written off as a “nothingburger” while the prostitute media uses the First Amendment as toilet paper. Government hacks and climate change activists will not protest what the media has decried as “conspiracy”. Add in slave labor and China’s domination of the green market, as well as a lack of commitment to solve the “crisis” from the CCP (which cares nothing for the environment and can’t be stopped from polluting) and the picture becomes complete. If all of these reasons aren’t convincing enough to stop the complete reorganization of normal life at the hands of deranged leftists, and it’s unclear how eating crickets wasn’t the tipping point, the prospect of the US continuing to fatten China and strengthen their military with taxpayer dollars while enriching the slave trade probably wouldn’t convince anyone on the left either.
With all this information unearthed, how will the prospect of driving a government mandated EV sound to the public? How hypocritical is Joe Biden (or his puppet master) for punishing fossil fuel producers even further than he has already, with new diktats that will not be enforced on REE producers for their filth? Does the idea of government and green cult stooges banning gas and wood stoves sound like logical energy policies, (an amount of state power the founders of the American government strictly forbade) knowing that these individuals are enjoying the luxuries they publicly despise while pushing a form of energy that is beyond filthy? How appetizing will the thought of eating crickets sound to the public, especially considering that it is not only unnecessary, but merely an exercise in obedience from a global world order?
In the end, will it ever be about the environment?