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thank you Max. Having a briefer comment from you to encourage others to concentrate on the emergency is quite useful - I've heard the from several people over the weeks. All want to learn, and briefer comments , as well as the photos, keep our guests at the Welcome House2 (Homeless shelters) searching for more in the libraries they can reach. I think you give them a sense of that that if they work very hard, we all might have a chance to turn the tide. (It's also helpful to me personally as I'm bind in one eye.) And your comment on the day of Myron Dewey's passing fuels my determination.

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See this: Matthias Schmelzer, The Hegemony of Growth: The OECD and the Making of the Economic Growth Paradigm (Cambridge University Press, 2016) —

...'the green economy has been characterized as the “next oxymoron,” similarly unable to reconcile effective environmental protection with free trade and growth.'

full quote, 332-333.... 'The “imperial mode of living” based on mass consumption and high mobility in the global North has increasingly become universalized through the fast growth of emerging markets, and since 2008 the global economy uses the resources and sinks of more than 1.5 planets every year. In the wake of the financial and economic crisis that has hit countries around the world since 2007, states and international organization have again stepped up efforts to revisit traditional economic goals and models. The most influential new concept that emerged as the guiding principle of powerful institutions to reshape society-nature relations was the “green economy,” which built on earlier debates about a “Green New Deal” and ecological modernization more generally and promoted market and technological reforms to reconcile economic, ecological, and social goals. Yet the green economy concept went even one step further by appropriating ecological crises for the reinvention of capitalism. As argued in a recent volume: “Its underlying message is attractive and optimistic: if the market can become the tool for tackling climate change and other major ecological crises, the fight against these crises can also be the royal road to solving the problems of the market.” Due to its similarity with earlier attempts such as “qualitative growth” in the 1970s or “sustainable development” in the 1990s, the green economy has been characterized as the “next oxymoron,” similarly unable to reconcile effective environmental protection with free trade and growth.'

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Check out the Limits To Growth by Donella Meadows

Infinite growth, of whatever kind, including economics, technological, energy consumption, population, cannot happen on a finite planet.

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Rep. Gov Lombardo what to mine all of Nevada and has partnered with Canada ...

Not only does this scare me it hurts as well !

I just don’t understand the-craziness and what has and will be sacrificed for EVs !

Enjoying ‘ the bright green lies’ and hope it will be in all schools .... soon .....

Thank you Max for all you do !

And again beautiful photos !!!

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Hi Max

The person who made the next CACOR presentation, after you, clearly said "there will be sacrifices" in terms of justifying mining, extraction, for green colored energy. His presentation was about Net Zero houses and owning private transport, which costs about $90,000 to be Green Colored. Point being, he said it clearly, and also speaks like many convinced people of north america, especially anglo-saxon people, who want "sacrifice" and think it's "good" for the planet and future generations. Also such people drive or have driven policy. This is deeply problematic already.

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Oct 1, 2023·edited Oct 1, 2023

Why aren't you protesting the oilsands...more air pollution from that than in 1 day than the lithium mine in 100 years. Lithium, cobalt, manganese, iron, phosphorus all go back to 100% capacity once recycled. Its just use phase they lose capacity. Battery materials can and will be recycled for 1000 years...

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author

Hey Brian, great question. I actually am! I've been deeply involved in fighting a tar sands pipeline, and in fighting the Utah tar sands projects. But regardless of how destructive the tar sands are, this project is also destroying the planet.

Also notably, the nearby Thacker Pass lithium mine is deeply interlinked with the tar sands, so fighting these mines is also a way to indirectly fight the tar sands. Check out this article to learn how: https://sierranevadaally.org/2021/04/19/dispatches-from-thacker-pass-the-long-shadow-of-the-tar-sands-lithium-mining-and-tar-sands-sulfur/

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"100% capacity once recycled"

You seen how children and poor recycle metals in Pakistan or African countries?

Recycle it and then claim all such contrarian number counting.

From the mines itself, contamination starts, be it minerals, coal or metals, in the air (Check what Black Lungs disease is).

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Somewhere I once read this:

“Mountaintop removal for lithium to go into electric vehicle batteries is ecocide, just like mountaintop removal for coal mining is. Earlier this week, I visited the site of yet another planned open pit lithium mine that is threatening the Great Basin — this time, in the state of Oregon. This site, about 15 miles north of Thacker Pass, is vital habitat for the Lahontan cutthroat trout, sage grouse, and countless other species — and it would be completely destroyed if the mine is built.”

The emergency we face is so much more than air pollution. There are sacrifice zones galore being created in the name of that singular focus. Extractive industrial processes and the destruction they bring cannot address the destructive consequences of extractive industrial processes. Nor do they address the mindset that conceives and rationalizes such destruction.

We must step outside of the megamachine and see it for what it is. “Battery materials” are someone’s home.

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tiny fraction of what we mine now and will be recycled for 1000 years...lithium iron phosporus are now 60% of market....lithium a medication, iron is a micronutrient for the body so is phosphorus.

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