In Chile’s Salar de Atacama, locals watch helplessly as their ancestral lands wither and die, their precious water resources evaporating in briny salars.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, hope for a better life dissolves as well-funded Ugandan-led extremist groups force children as young as 6 to work in cobalt mines.
Closer to home, Nevada’s Fort McDermitt Tribe and local ranchers fight to protect a sacred burial site and agricultural lands set to be sacrificed by Lithium Nevada, a mining company, in the coming days.
Meanwhile, in California and other states, politicians such as Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) pat themselves on the back for their “aggressive” environmental stance and boast that their gas-powered vehicle bans are leading “the revolution towards our zero-emission transportation future.”
The Hidden Costs
According to politicians like Newsom and President Joe Biden, electric vehicles (EV) are “zero-emission” because they use lithium-ion batteries—consisting of lithium, cobalt, graphite, and other materials—instead of gas.
Thus, starting in 2035, California will ban gas-powered vehicle sales, while several other states plan to follow suit, citing that as a goal and “critical milestone in our climate fight,” on Twitter.
Additionally, according to a statement from Biden, banning gas-powered vehicles will “save consumers money, cut pollution, boost public health, advance environmental justice, and tackle the climate crisis.”
John Hadder, director of the Great Basin Resource Watch, disagrees, pointing out to The Epoch Times that “industrial” nations might benefit from the transition to EVs, but it’s at the expense of others.
“This expansion of [lithium] mining will have immediate consequences for front-line communities that are taking the ‘hit.’”
For example, Copiapó, the capital of Chile’s Atacama region, is the location of one of the world’s largest known lithium reserves.
“We used to have a river before, that now doesn’t exist. There isn’t a drop of water,” Elena Rivera Cardoso, president of the Indigenous Colla community of the Copiapó commune, told the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
She added that all of Chile’s water is disappearing because of the local lithium mine.
“In all of Chile, there are rivers and lakes that have disappeared—all because a company has a lot more right to water than we do as human beings or citizens of Chile.”
By Katie Spence
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