Many of us have come to realize that our Earth’s stores of oil and other minerals are finite. I, like others, have been led to believe that the new electric cars are better for the environment. The hard fact; however, is that lithium mining is every bit as detrimental to our planet as drilling for oil.
The vast number of acres of land used for oil wells, has displaced thousands of species. It destroys their habitat, making it difficult for them to breed and reproduce and even to communicate. The loss of habitat diminishes their ability to find food and in many cases, such as in an oil spill, kills them outright. The fragmentation of land to build roads, fences, and modern structures interferes with their safe movement from one area to another, resulting in highway deaths and powerline collisions. If we continue to destroy more forests by opening more land to oil drilling, we are ensuring the demise and extinction of still more species.
The makers of lithium batteries claim that their batteries are recyclable. This is not exactly true. The rules vary from state to state and from town to town. Most people continue to toss AA and other batteries into their regular trash. Eventually, the heavy metals used to make the batteries begin to leach into the soil and groundwater. The contamination works its way up the food chain, from the soil and the water, into other organisms and eventually into our own bodies. The extraction of lithium compromises the soil structure and depletes stores of underground water. It increases the salinity in rivers downstream and leaves behind toxic waste.
It seems that wherever humans tread, biodiversity is lost. Every form of mining, of every type of metal or mineral, exploits and depletes the Earth. Oil drilling, lithium mining, fracking – it is all done with only the selfish wants of humans to consider. The world has been made dependent upon things that for centuries was never needed. It seems that we have forgotten how to use our two legs for walking or for riding a bicycle. We are always on the go in the false belief that the grass is greener somewhere else. We seldom stop or sit long enough to appreciate the ground on which we are standing. Until all of us together make the decision to seek out less harmful ways of moving about in our world, we cannot stop the growing carnage around us. We need to ask ourselves the tougher questions. Do we really need automobiles? Do we need airplanes? Or, have we only convinced ourselves that they are necessary? We can trade in our gasoline dependent lives for an electric car, but are we simply trading one evil for another? If we don’t care for either option, it will be necessary to think outside the box. It will be necessary to embark on an entirely new paradigm.
