THE COST OF GREEN ENERGY: LITHIUM MINING’S IMPACT ON NATURE AND PEOPLE

According to the article "The Cost of Green Energy: Lithium Mining’s Impact on Nature and People”, the high global demand on lithium creates huge environmental and social issues. The article briefly explains the challenges behind the process of extracting lithium. The article exclusively showed how the mining industry in Chile threatened the environment and indigenous people there. As it is written in the article, lithium mining can harm the environment because it leads to deforestation, harm the freshwater resources, and contaminate the soil with hazardous material since the process of lithium extraction uses sulfur acid and sodium hydroxide. Furthermore, the whole process of lithium mining produces more greenhouse emission than fossil-fuel vehicles. According

to The Wall Street Journal study in 2019, the lithium mining industry contributed 40% of global warming. Moreover, the life of the indigenous people in the mining area also negatively impacted by the mining operation. The article reported that in Sout America the lithium mining has force out indigenous people from the land that they call home before. Even though lithium mining is promising a sustainable energy, they are not, because they ruin one area to satisfy others, as said by Atacama Indigenous Council member, Francis Mendosa. In conclusion the high demand of lithium showed pattern of green imperialism where in the name of new energy source extractions indigenous people are dispelled from their ancestral land.

Source: https://www.mining-technology.com/analyst-comment/lithium-mining-negative-environmental-impact/?cf-view&cf-closed