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The road to hell is paved with good intentions. [1]

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Date: 2023-09-08

On September 12th, 1865, a group of Paiute people, being hunted by the US cavalry, hid in Thacker Pass, in what is now northeast Nevada. According to a local newspaper article from September 30th, 1865, "a charge was ordered, and each officer and man went for scalps, and fought the scattering devils over several miles of ground for three hours, in which time all were killed that could be found." The article goes on to state that thirty-one dead were located noting "more must have been killed and died from their wounds, as a strict search of the battlefield so great." One of the volunteers involved in the killings, Jim Sackett, recounted that the Paiutes, including "squaws and little children" had been sleeping in small huts known as wickiups and were "shot down before they came to their senses. From one wickiup to another, we went pouring in our bullets."

Thacker Pass, known to the Paiute as Peehee mu’huh (which means Rotten Moon), has once again become the ground for a new dispute between the Paiute and the federal government. This time, bullets and massacres aren't involved (at least not yet). What's at stake in this conflict is one of the largest known lithium deposits in the world. The Nevada Division of Minerals estimates that there is enough lithium in Thacker Pass to meet 25% of current global lithium demand and lithium is a critical component in the manufacture of batteries. Batteries used in so many of our electronic devices such as cell phones and tablets. Batteries used for solar power backup storage and perhaps most notably, electronic vehicle (EV) batteries. Most lithium comes from Chile, Australia, and China. China leads the world in processing battery-grade lithium. The lithium processed at Thacker Pass will be one of the few plants in the United States capable of producing battery-grade lithium. The demand for lithium is skyrocketing as the International Energy Agency estimates that by 2030 60% of all vehicles sold globally will be electric.

The Thacker Pass project was greenlit by the Trump administration in its waning days and has faced legal challenges from conservation and Indigenous people groups. In a twist of irony, Trump probably did President Biden a favor by approving the project; allowing Biden to avoid the political fallout of approving the project, while also providing a key component of his clean energy agenda: batteries for electric vehicles. The project has gained significant U.S. corporate support, including General Motors, which announced in February that it will invest $650 million in the lithium mine. On July 17th, 2023, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to vacate federal land managers' approval of the lithium mine at Thacker Pass, stating that the U.S. government had taken a sufficiently "hard look" at the project's impacts before approving it. Each of the panel of judges dismissed arguments by conservation groups and Native American tribes in their written opinion. This week, construction crews began work on the 18,000-acre mine site.

I made the decision that I would never again buy a solely internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle. There are many factors in my decision, but chief among them was an effort to reduce my carbon emissions, especially considering the transportation sector accounts for 30% of CO2 emissions worldwide. While knowing that EVs come with their own set of challenges with regard to environmental concerns, it always struck me as a net positive versus the damage done by ICE vehicles. My perspective shifted when I received an email from the Lakota People's Law Project (a non-profit organization focused on legal issues involving First Nations people) concerning Thacker Pass. Protestors being jailed, civil lawsuits filed against protest leaders, and even court orders to block videographers from documenting activities at the mine site were outlined. I learned that Thacker Pass will be an open-pit design using highly toxic sulfuric acid pumped into the earth to leach lithium out of clay and stone. The mining company plans to process the acid from sulfur trucked and trained in from oil refineries (a principal byproduct) all over the country. This also opened my eyes to the fact that indigenous communities throughout the world have been adversely impacted by lithium mining operations (especially at the Olaroz-Cauchari salt flats in Chile) not to mention proposed mining sites in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, and Wyoming — many in areas Indigenous tribes call home.

Going down the rabbit hole that is Internet research led me to another finding. Indigenous people around the world are being disproportionately negatively impacted by the effects of climate change even though they contribute the least to greenhouse gas emissions. These communities often live closer to nature and the impacts of a changing climate have a more profound effect on their livelihoods, food sources, cultural practices, and even their health. The fact is that Indigenous people have been given a raw deal through much of human history, arguably with Native Americans near the top of that miserable list. Society continues to impose upon them in ways that most Americans would probably find abhorrent if placed in their shoes.

Now here we are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea as we try to navigate our way out of our addiction to rotten pre-historic organisms. If not petroleum or lithium, then what? The protestors at Thacker Pass outline six elements for a sustainable future. My summation of this is that it will take a fundamental shift in the way we live. Familiar themes like reducing consumption, rationing resources, and restoring ecosystems, but also a more radical notion of relocalizing the way live; giving up our jet-setting, road-tripping ways. To quote the protestors: "We face a choice: either we sacrifice the ability of future generations to live so that we can have another decade of smartphones and cars, or we make a change. The moral choice is clear."

In the end, I will likely get that EV because I'm simply not sure how I would exist and function in my current community without personal transportation. It seems wholly unfair that we ask these Indigenous people to shoulder the lion's share of the burden. I don't have answers, but perhaps Mother Nature will relocalize all of us if we don't figure it out. I'll leave you with this insightful quote from Raoni Meukire, who was chief of the Brazilian Kayapó people when the Amazon rainforest was burning in 2019.

"We all breathe this one air; we all drink the same water. We live on this one planet. We need to protect the Earth. If we don’t, the big winds will come and destroy the forest. Then you will feel the fear that we feel."

P.S. There's a very nice video that premiered today on YouTube that outlines the issues at Thacker Pass in much greater detail.

I would also highly encourage you to watch this maddening, but informative TED Talk by Al Gore that was released in July 2023. He passionately lays out how the fossil fuel industry is still sabotaging efforts to combat climate change.

www.ted.com/...

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/8/2192262/-The-road-to-hell-is-paved-with-good-intentions

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