The dirty truth about clean energy https://www.localfutures.org/the-dirty-truth-about-clean-energy/ May 25, 2022 by Carlos Zorrilla
instead of reducing overall energy consumption, the focus is on increasing ‘green’ energy consumption: electric vehicles, massive electric storage installations, solar ‘farms’ and monster wind turbines. More consumption to cure the cancer of overconsumption.... The elephant in the room few want to acknowledge is the destruction of people and the environment that will result from the hunger for so-called green energy minerals – mainly copper, cobalt, nickel and lithium.
The environmental degradation that accompanies mining will affect other key ecosystem services, such as purifying air and water, regulating stream and river flows, and reducing erosion and flooding.
Then there are the human rights violations that are so closely tied to mining. Many communities, whether indigenous or campesino, will not agree to relocate willingly.
The most important measures to take right now are to create red lines with local stakeholders in order to keep mining and other extractive industries out of these special sites. One of the most important is respecting the right of local populations to decide their own future. Consultations need to be genuine, and if consent is given for extractive activities, it needs to be done freely, without pressure and only after thoroughly knowing the proposed activities’ impacts. Sacred lands, biodiversity hotspots, native forests and habitats harboring endangered species must be off-limits to mining.