In Portugal’s northern Barroso region, Maria Loureiro weeps at the prospect of losing her family’s land to a mine that could become one of Europe’s biggest producers of lithium, used in electric vehicle batteries and other clean technologies.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
She is among local activists in Portugal and elsewhere whose determination to halt mine developments - via protests, legal challenges or simply refusing to sell or rent the land needed - threatens to slow the European Union’s green transition.
Michael Schmidt, senior analyst at Germany’s DERA mineral resources agency said current and planned mining projects could cover 25-35% of EU lithium demand by 2030, although meeting the 10% target for materials like nickel and cobalt would be harder.
Portugal’s lithium reserves have “an important role to play” in meeting the EU’s target, the environment ministry said, adding that new mines would bring money and jobs for local communities.
Last month, climate activist Greta Thunberg protested against plans to develop a huge rare earth metals deposit at Kiruna, in Sweden’s far north, which the area’s indigenous Sami people have decried as “colonialism”.
State-owned miner LKAB’s spokesperson Anders Lindberg said it could minimise the effects on the Sami, who without new mines to hasten electrification would face threats from accelerated climate change to their traditional way of life.
Gunilla Hogberg Bjorck, who represents opponents of southern Sweden’s Norra Karr rare earths project, held up since 2009 by concerns it could pollute drinking water, fears the EU’s push for mining independence will be a “catastrophe” for environmental law.
The original article contains 1,089 words, the summary contains 215 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
well lady, did you also weep when thousands of people in the rest of the world had their family’s land turned into mines? or did you not even think about that and just merrily enjoyed using devices with batteries?
Why does this have to be a race to the bottom? Just because some people were expelled from their homes doesn’t mean we have a moral right to keep doing it to everyone.
it’s going to continue to happen whether you like it or not, people aren’t going to stop demanding batteries.
Best to at least have it happen in countries where the evicted people are actually compensated and we can regulate the mining operations, and where we will directly feel the impacts of our insistence on overconsumption.
It’s real easy to sit in comfort and say that things should magically stop being bad, but unfortunately that’s not possible and the only way people are going to stop being evicted for mining is if we stop needing the minerals underground to build phones, and people clearly aren’t willing to give up our modern comforts…
I agree with your points but this isn’t a case of “regretfully, the only place where we can extract lithium is right here, no where else on the planet has it. You guys have to move for the greater well being of mankind”. It’s just a place where we can pump it out cheaper.
Indeed. There are many locations for Lithium, it’s very abundant, so it definitely isn’t the only place it can be extracted. Australia, Chile and North America also have huge deposits. It’s definitely not the only place.
Displace those people who have even less than us on another continent where we can’t see or hear their suffering while we buy the next iPhone.
I bet you these people will keep buying new phones and things made from what’s gained from the mines.
Despite a certain amount of hipocricy, this hurts to hear about because of how electric cars are actually a very bad way to attempt to solve the climate crisis, when we in fact should replace cars by public transport and bikes, and trucks with trains, etc.
I am not 100% what other “clean” technologies they are referring to (busted, yeah I didn’t click the link), but I worry some of them might also be highly inefficient ways to improve things that are more akin to greenwashing.
Last month, climate activist Greta Thunberg protested against plans to develop a huge rare earth metals deposit at Kiruna, in Sweden’s far north, which the area’s indigenous Sami people have decried as “colonialism”.
We are to fight climate change, we have to fight for people exploited in (proto) third-world countries… just not in Europe cause then it’s bad
This hypocrisy is so maddening
