LITHIUM mining for electric vehicles is incredibly destructive to the environment and about as far from “green” as you can imagine

by P. Homewood, Oct 13, 2022 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat


There’s nothing new here, but it acts as a good reminder of just bad lithium mining is for the environment:

Electric vehicles are promoted as the solution for combating “climate change.” Governments are currently incentivizing the production of electric vehicles, while punishing the fossil fuel industry. However, lithium mining for electric vehicles is incredibly destructive to the environment, and is about as far from “green” as one could imagine. Not to mention, most of the lithium-ion batteries produced today come from China and require water-intensive mining operations that ravage natural environments throughout Australia, Argentina and Chile. The process depletes ground water, and leaves behind toxic wastewater that contaminates fields and harms wildlife. The mining process is not carbon dioxide free, either. The mining process releases 15,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions for every ton of lithium that is extracted.

There are serious environmental risks to extracting lithium for the production of lithium-ion batteries

When lithium is extracted from salt mines, the miners must drill into the salt flats and pump out a salty, mineral-rich brine. The brine is placed in large pools, so the water can evaporate out. When the brine evaporates, it leaves behind a sludge of potassium, manganese, borax and lithium salts that must be filtered out further. The process pollutes nearby aquifers and lowers the water table, interfering with water sources in the local environment.

The lithium extraction process takes several months, displaces valuable water resources, and leaves behind a toxic trail of wastewater in the local environment. It takes approximately 500,000 gallons of water to produce one ton of lithium. When mining companies head into countries like Chile, they use up a majority of the region’s water, unjustly affecting small communities.

According to the Institute of Energy Research, Chile’s Salar de Atacama is one of the driest places on Earth, yet the mining companies are allowed to use up 65% of the region’s water. After the brine is removed from the salt flats, the water table automatically falls, disrupting the natural flow of water that is needed for wells and agriculture. These large-scale disruptions can always be blamed on “climate change” as the lithium mining industry plunges ahead, with no regard for the environmental damage wrought in its wake.

Water quality, wildlife populations, and crops all adversely affected by lithium mining

Regime Pseudoscientists Enforce Climate Change Narrative

by M. Rectenwald, Oct 12, 2022 in ClimateChangeDispatch


It does this by pathologizing said subjects and their views.

For example, the field has been mobilized to discredit so-called conspiracy theorists by attempting to identify the mistaken mental processes that conspiracy theorists exhibit. [bold, links added]

The methods and results of such studies have proven to be less than stellar, to say the least.

Now, the field is also being wielded to discredit “climate change deniers.”1 By pathologizing the thinking processes of these stubbornly mistaken subjects, the views of said subjects can be safely dismissed.

After all, the theory of anthropogenic climate change (ACC) is obviously true, or so says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the planetary authority on the matter.

Likewise, those who doubt or deny ACC must be crazy. The point of psychological studies is to discover just what is wrong with these people and how, if possible, to change their minds.

Of course, such studies focus exclusively on the “deniers,” without ever considering climate change believers and whether something is wrong with them. The field lacks even a semblance of symmetry.

Never mind that “the science” is dubious or that climate change is ludicrously being blamed for heart attacks, obesity in children, increased violence, and terrorism, among other medical and social maladies.

Believing in a causal connection between a questionable climate change theory and these phenomena must be perfectly rational, according to this kind of research.

Such is the thrust of a recent study of Australian climate change skeptics conducted by a lecturer in psychology and a professor of geology at the University of the Sunshine Coast.

Entitled “Associations of Locus of Control, Information Processing Style and Anti-reflexivity with Climate Change Scepticism in an Australian Sample,” the study examines climate change skeptics in terms of thinking styles rather than “values” and “sociodemographic” factors.

Since past research has found values and sociodemographic factors to be intractable, the researchers in this study seek to identify factors that presumably can be changed and that should likewise prove useful for the study.