Is Fighting Climate Change Causing Climate Change?
It’s the year 2022 and climate change is public enemy #1. My generation has been warned over and over again of the impending climate apocalypse. At first, I brushed this off as fearmongering. After all, the world was supposed to end in climate catastrophe a plethora of times over the past 50 years but none of the apocalyptic scenarios played out quite like we were told. We are well within our right to be skeptical when we are told “the world will end in 12 years” by representatives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
As much as I want to write off the concerns of the doomsday climate prophets, they aren’t completely without merit. Am I concerned co2 emissions will cause the climate apocalypse? No, but I am concerned in our efforts to fight climate change; we could cause the very problem we fear.
In the United States, there is a massive push to switch from gas-powered vehicles to electric vehicles. California recently made waves as it announced it will ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. They are doing this in their war against “climate change” as they seek to move toward cleaner forms of energy.
Surely, driving an emissions-free vehicle is better for the environment, right? At least that’s what we’ve been told. I believed electric vehicles are better for the environment, that is until I heard this narrative questioned. I decided to see for myself if electric vehicles had any negative impacts on the environment and what I discovered shook me.
Since lithium is the primary material used for the batteries that power electric vehicles, I simply typed into my search engine “Is lithium mining bad for the environment?”
This was the first result:
If you look through the results, you’ll see dozens of articles explaining the negative environmental impacts of lithium mining. The first article published by The Institute of Energy Research explains how lithium mining is contaminating the environment and led to the deaths of cows, yaks, and fish.
”In May 2016, dead fish were found in the waters of the Liqi River, where a toxic chemical leaked from the Ganzizhou Rongda Lithium mine. Cow and yak carcasses were also found floating downstream, dead from drinking contaminated water. It was the third incident in seven years due to a sharp increase in mining activity, including operations run by China’s BYD, one of the world’ biggest supplier of lithium-ion batteries. After the second incident in 2013, officials closed the mine, but fish started dying again when it reopened in April 2016.”
This same article goes on to explain how mining for lithium consumed over 65% of the nation’s water supply.
“Surely, this can’t be true.” I thought to myself. It sounded like a wild conspiracy theory.
I kept reading and came across an article by TetraTrend titled “Is Lithium Mining Bad For the Environment?” and I was stunned to discover this is true and worse than I had realized.
”The biggest environmental threat Lithium mining poses is the massive amount of water it takes to process the Lithium. It is estimated that 500,000 gallons, i.e., 1892795.89 litres of water per metric ton of Lithium is used in Lithium mining. This poses major threat to the location where the mining takes place as it can most possibly cause famines and droughts for decades to come. A similar incident took place in Salar de Atacama, Chile. Lithium mining consumed 65% of that region’s natural water supply, which directly impacted the local farmers and they had to get irrigation water from elsewhere for their agriculture.”
What I found most troubling is draughts and famines are even possibilities when mining lithium. Do you think it’s possible if people understood we could cause draughts and famine when mining for lithium, we would think twice before going 100% electric?
The next thing I typed into my search bar is “Are there draughts in Chile?” And my search results yielded another YES. I discovered this article by the NY Post titled “Chile’s record-breaking drought makes climate change ‘very easy’ to see.”
The writer points toward the draught in Chile as evidence of climate change, yet, they make no connection between lithium mining as a potential source of the draught. The writer goes on to quote Science Minister Andres Couve saying, “We already have overwhelming evidence, and it is climatic evidence” but zero evidence is provided in the article. They just point to the lack of rainfall being obvious evidence of climate change but don’t give any specifics. Climate Change in general is the scapegoat. They entirely neglect even a passing mention or suggestion that lithium mining is a potential source of the draught in this area.
It’s not only possible but it seems likely the massive amounts of water humans are using to mine lithium is causing draughts. However, to say this out loud would require them to admit lithium mining has severe environmental repercussions, including changes to our climate.
Isn’t that ironic? In the effort to fight climate change, we are causing climate change.
It is evident Chile is facing a drought and it’s also true Chile happens to be the home of one of the 2nd largest lithium mines in the world. The first largest lithium mine is in Western Australia, which is also experiencing one of the worst draughts seen in 40 years.
If you look up the top 10 countries with the largest lithium mines, nearly every country listed is experiencing historic droughts.
This should be deeply unsettling and is not talked about nearly as much as it should be. Your average person has no idea lithium mining is bad for the environment and they certainly don’t know draughts and famine are potential consequences.
I’m not a climate scientist. I’m just an everyday person who typed questions into a search engine and I have been able to uncover research that points to major problems with lithium mining.
Now, I am not proposing we abandon pursuits of alternative forms of energy, but the lithium mining process warrants serious concern. You couple environmental impacts with lack of infrastructure, not only will we face draughts and famine but also higher energy costs and rolling blackouts like Europe and California are facing. Our efforts to fight climate change are only compounding the problem.
We can’t fight climate change by causing climate change. Draughts, famine, and rolling blackouts will have devastating effects on the lives of the people caught in the crossfire of this climate war. We can’t make this transition without weighing the cost and as it stands right now, the costs are too high.