If you are an environmentalist, how do you reconcile...

[Strugglingtodomybest]

... the need for a huge increase in mining of critical minerals in order to fuel the green revolution against the damage mining does to the environment?

I've been pondering this a lot recently and thought this might be the board to get other's views on it.

Complex, but a false paradigm that highlights the capitalist approach to building our way out of trouble. Has to be coupled with demand reduction. I wouldn’t term myself an environmentalist but I work in the sector. But yes, I’ve met international environmentalists whose local ecosystems are blighted by pollution from mining for battery production for eg.

Sorry to be as thick as pig shit, but which critical minerals do you mean? Is it something to do with EV batteries?

Sorry grandma I shouldn't have assumed everyone knows what critical minerals are!

They are the minerals that are needed for things like EV battles, solar panels, wind turbines and also for the digital revolution we're currently in. Things like lithium, copper, nickel, graphite, and rare earth metals.

Some of them are very difficult to obtain and cause a lot environmental damage to process, not to mention the energy needed to produce them.

Findapath are you suggesting that we first need to bring down the capitalist society we live in?

Surely you can't reconcile it? Or you just look like a massive hypocrite?

Not suggesting we bring down capitalism ( not on a Thursday) but that we recognise that there are alternatives to ever increasing consumption

😁 no, best saved for a Monday morning when we're fresh from the weekend I reckon!

So, and sorry if I'm being thick here, are you saying that instead of building more wind turbines, solar panels etc for combating climate change, we just stop using electricity? Or keep using oil? I totally get that we need to stop consuming more electronics (phones etc) but I'm not sure how we can go 'backwards', so to speak, from using electricity?

So what do you do as an environmentalist? Support mining? The only solution I seem to come up with is to fund more research into green mining solutions. Is there any other solution??

I think the reality is that it can’t be done without a significant reduction in living standards (for people in the West) or the environmental destruction associated with mining. Unfortunately no one is going to vote for a reduction in living standards so it’s either fossil fuels or environmental destruction. In addition, it will be very difficult to get rid of fossil fuels 100% without nuclear energy.

I actually don’t know either and I think it’s a much wider issue that just rare minerals.

eg electric cars are supposed to be environmentally friendly but actually , due to the way we produce electricity in the U.K., the impact on CO2 production is minimal.

I agree about reducing consumption.
I also think that, before insisting we just need to produce something else instead, we look at our production processes. There is a lot we can do from reducing over-packaging to reducing emissions to improving productivity to insisting on green energy etc….
And I’d put the responsibility back on the polluters, aka industries and governments (who decide on legislation) rather than insist it’s ONLY the responsibility of individuals who simply consume too much/not the right way.

Btw, my own conclusion is that my next car will still be petrol rather than electric.

To offset the issues as much as I can, I’m still going to use that car until it falls apart (no changing every 3 years for the newest model).
It will be second hand, like my phone, iPad etc … (similar issues with those, incl the atrocious working conditions in those mines).

I can’t use it less or take the bus etc… (using a wheelchair) so that’s tte best I can do.

Maybe we need more governments around the world to implement better environmental standards? Or for the mining companies to implement them off their own backs (hmm?).

I found this when I was looking into it all: https://uk.angloamerican.com/about-us

"Designed with nature in mind
We take our location in the North York Moors National Park and our responsibility to our environment incredibly seriously.

The whole design philosophy of our project is to minimise our environmental impact as much as possible – both in construction and operations.

All major infrastructure at Woodsmith will be sunk below ground so that when the mine is completed, no mining equipment will be visible."

Which I think is a step forward in terms of caring for the environment. But I'm betting they don't do this in the other countries they operate in.

My conclusion re nuclear energy is that it's cleaner than any other fuel out there. But that's not a popular opinion due to Chernobyl!

I don’t have easy answers - as there aren’t any. But this is the argument that meant the Cumbrian coal mine got approved- but it’s a long way from opening yet. Becky Willis writes much better than I can on this…
https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/27/dig-coal-to-save-the-climate-the-folly-of-cumbrias-plans-for-a-new-coalmine

I agree with this and we have also decided that we won't be buying an EV yet, we'll carry on buying old cars and using them until they die. It seems crazy to me that people are getting rid of perfectly good cars, buying a new EV, and then claiming that they're doing something good for the environment.

Interesting article, thanks. It seems to be agreeing with my conclusion that the only way forward is investing in research into green mining and processing practices.

It would appear that in the case of steel-making this is already happening, and is still 10-15 years away from being usable technology though? In the meantime we are still importing metallurgical coal from countries like China which have much lower environmental standards than we do.

There's so much research going on into new battery chemistries that I think we're soon going to get to a world of SO2 batteries or others that don't need so many rare earths.

Same for EVs and the amount of critical and non-recoverable components - I know engineering teams at the auto OEMs are pretty focused on driving down these components for efficiency and cost reasons.

Agree with a PP that whatever other technologies are involved, demand reduction is going to be crucial. We are going to have to accept reduced living standards (if you count things like planned obsolescence, unnecessary levels of choice, infrastructure set up so it’s necessary to drive etc as going towards living standards) whether we like it or not. If things don’t change drastically we are totally fucked anyway and we may as well accept some changes in a more planned way which hopefully preserves the only home we’ve got. And impacting biodiversity, depending on finite materials etc is robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Both are bad, but one is worse.

Also, absolute bullshit to the reduced living standards thing. What we have now are reduced living standards. We'll look back and be amazed at the air quality, levels of public transport and general shit we put up with to makr an increasingly small minority rich.

It helps to remember that "environmentalism" covers a huge spectrum of often contradictory ideas and concepts. It's nigh on impossible to reconcile every environmental issue completely satisfactorily.

For me personally, my contribution to the green revolution in terms of transport is not replacing my petrol car with an EV because I think that just creates a different environmental problem, but to use public transport instead where I possibly can.

I don't think there's an "environmentalist" out there who doesn't agree that both consuming less resources and using the ones we do use with more efficiency are just as key as extracting more materials to make greener stuff with.

I think you need to do some more research there OP- and not on mining companies' websites!

Project Drawdown could be a good place to start.

Oh yes, definitely, there's loads of research going on into different types of batteries, which is great. I see that iron is being looked into too, for stationary storage.

Thanks for the link, well the name, I googled it myself, it looks like it'll have plenty of reading to keep me going for a while 😁

Don't worry, I'm not just researching using mining companies sites, that would be a bit silly wouldn't it?!

Also, why have you used quotation marks around the word environmentalist? Is that not the right word to be using?