While I finish two essays, I cannot recommend presentations from Max Wilbert and Julia Barnes highly enough. And please read the definitively welcome news from Brazil!
--Katie Singer
Max Wilbert on the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine
& the Failure of Green Growth
In his talk for the Canadian Association of the Club of Rome (CACOR), Max Wilbert shows photographs of flora and fauna at Thacker Pass, Nevada, before Lithium Americas began constructing its lithium mine. Then, he lays out the ecological impacts of mining. Max speaks plainly about his failed efforts to stop Lithium Americas Corporation from mining Thacker Pass. He explains that with fossil fuels, pollution is often visible during consumption. With e-vehicles, solar PVs, wind power and batteries, pollution is invisible at the consumption site although "green" technologies require fossil fuels and wreak havoc on wildlife. Max asks, "Is it worth destroying ecosystems so we can have technologies that depend on extracted minerals and fossil fuels?" He names options for caring for the Earth in these extractive times. Challenge your thinking and watch Max Wilbert's talk!
For background, see my June substack, " When Land I Love Holds Lithium: Max Wilbert on Thacker Pass, Nevada."
FYI, Max co-authored Deep Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It with Derrick Jensen and Lierre Keith.
Julia Barnes on deep-sea mining
Julia Barnes has directed two documentaries: "The Sea of Life" (2017) and "Bright Green Lies" (2021). Earlier this month, she presented " The Imminent Threat of Deep-Sea Mining" for the Canadian Association of the Club of Rome. She showed spectacular photos from the ocean, then reported that corporations want to turn the deep sea into the planet's largest contiguous mining area to mine cobalt, copper, nickel and manganese for smartphones, EVs, solar PV storage and other technologies. Julia explains how deep-sea mining would devastate ecosystems that take millions of years to form and the current state of regulation around deep-sea mining. She's clear that destroying the Earth will not help humanity or other species to survive.
I also recommend highly her very brief video, Deep Sea Mining: What Could It Do to the Ocean?
For more background, read Mining the Sacred, which Dr. Aaron French and I co-authored.
The Seaweed Delusion
Canada's ETC Group has just released " The Seaweed Delusion: Industrial seaweed will not cool the climate or save nature." Again, we have to ask whether industrial-scale technologies "rewild" ecosystems or generate profits?
Wonderful, Welcome News
In September, 2021, I posted, "If Brazil burns what's left of the Amazon, why hold COP26?" Last week, Brazil's Supreme Court voted in favor of Indigenous rights which may translate to protections for the Amazon.
