The boreal forest shelters more than 85 species of mammals, including some of the largest and most majestic—wood bison, elk, moose, woodland caribou, grizzly and black bears, and wolves—and smaller species, such as beavers, snowshoe hares, Canada lynx, red squirrels, lemmings, and voles.
The boreal forest shelters more than 85 species of mammals, including some of the largest and most majestic—wood bison, elk, moose, woodland caribou, grizzly and black bears, and wolves—and smaller species, such as beavers, snowshoe hares, Canada lynx, red squirrels, lemmings, and voles.
Nearly half of the birds in North America rely on the boreal forest at some time during the year. It is estimated that at least 3 billion landbirds, water birds, and shorebirds breed in the boreal forest each year, representing more than 300 species. Another 300 million birds, including several species of shorebirds, swans, and geese, breed farther north and travel through the boreal forest during migration. It is estimated that 32 000 insect species inhabit Canada's boreal forest, although about one third of these species have yet to be described. Canada's boreal forest is home to about 130 species of fish (including minnows, stickleback and Larger species such as including walleye, northern pike, lake trout, Arctic grayling, yellow perch, brook trout, whitefish and burbot).
It is worth re-iterating that Hard rock lithium mining involves deforestation, draining lakes and rivers, blowing the land into pieces with explosives, carving deep gashes into the Earth with giant machines, using truckloads of industrial solvents like sulfuric acid (resulting in water contamination with toxic sludge) dragging that processed rubble to processing facilities with fleets of heavy machinery then processing the ore with extremely high energy demanding furnaces using another slew of toxic chemicals (which further contaminate the water table, lakes, rivers and ocean elsewhere).
In order to illustrate the potential for catastrophic harm to ecosystems and human health that these mines pose I present a cautionary tale: The Liqi River was once full of fish: Almost none are left. Chemical spills from the Ganzizhou Rongda lithium mine have killed many. “The whole river stank, and it was full of dead yaks and dead fish,” said one villager.: “Masses” of dead fish covered the river. The people got the mine shut down three times, only to have the government reopen it. One of the elders said, “Old people, we see the mines and we cry. What are the future generations going to do? How are they going to survive?”A local activist surveyed people in the area. Even if mining companies split the profits and promised to repair the land after the mines are exhausted, the Tibetans wanted no part of it. “God is in the mountains and the rivers, these are the places that spirits live,” he explained.” “sustainable development” technology (Lithium battery tech) offers everything: every luxury, every whim, available at the touch of a ‘carbon-free’ button. But the world that these technologies provide will be a rotting, desecrated, and, finally, dead world if we let them continue on their crusade to turn the living world into dead things, for profit and to perpetuate our obscene technologically addicted human “civilization”.
In the concentrations extracted via industrial mining operations, lithium is harmful to living beings. It interferes with sperm viability, causes birth defects, memory problems, kidney failure, movement disorders, and so on. Other materials in an electric-car battery can be even more harmful than lithium, with nickel and cobalt electrodes being the most destructive component.
As I covered in a past post, about half of the cobalt used in lithium batteries comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where 40,000 children as young as four are essentially enslaved in mines, carrying backbreaking loads in conditions of intense heat, with no safety equipment, under abusive managers and guards, for a wage of a dollar a day.
Here in Canada, we may end up paying our cobalt miners more money and they may be wearing steel toes and hat hats, but the impacts on the ecosystem will be just as devastating.
There’s no circumventing the fact that these energy-storage technologies are fundamentally destructive. And they're dependent on a global supply chain and advanced manufacturing technologies that, themselves, are fundamentally destructive. Machines making machines making machines; and while more and more hyperbolic "green" headlines are written, the planet is being killed.
Next on the hit list for corporate pillaging in the name of "sustainability" is the Boreal Forest.
As described above, our corrupt corporation captured government is helping to initiate large projects to pillage the lands of indigenous peoples (Cree of Eeyou Istchee, the Shakopaatikoong peoples of the Slate Falls first nation and the Waabitigweyaang peoples of Sandy Lake, among others ) and the body of Mother Earth in new Lithium (cobalt and tantalum) mines in northern Ontario and Quebec.
Given the nature of open pit mining, lithium leeching ponds and lithium refining, the inevitable result will be large scale poisoning of the water table and the ocean in James bay, contamination of the great lakes (through lake Superior, moving downstream into all the other great lakes), deforestation and genocide of local wildlife.
These corporations intend to clear cut the boreal forest, annihilating the little bit of remaining habitat that exists in Ontario for the moose, caribou, the lynx, bears, the mountain lion, wolves, fox, bobcats, eagles, hawks and countless other winged and four legged beings will be forcibly displaced from their homes (inevitably resulting in many of them attempting to return to their homes only to starve while pacing near the fences or to be poisoned by the toxins these mines produce).
The fish in the lakes, the whales and countless other beings in James bay, they will all be decimated by these projects.
These corporations appear to be moving in fast and as quiet as possible (paying off locals with bribes along the way and getting them to sign binding agreements) to avoid local and environmentalist resistance.
These projects will mean we trade blood for lithium so we can have fun i-pads and electric cars to play with. We will be trading the ancient beauty and majesty of the Boreal forest and all it's inhabitants for smart phones and tesla cars. I can't help but ask myself this question... Is it really worth it?
In closing, I would like to humbly remind you that Each time you make a choice that nourishes, respects and enriches the living Earth, you are nourishing, respecting and enriching yourself... and each time you make a choice that degrades, harms and pillages her, you are degrading, harming and pillaging yourself.
Those that wish to walk a path guided by any kind of honest moral compass (including but not limited to the permaculture ethical imperative of People Care-Earth Care-Future Care) are going to have to make some hard choices in the coming years if we want our actions to continue to align with the principles we espouse and claim to live by.
(continued from above..)
The boreal forest shelters more than 85 species of mammals, including some of the largest and most majestic—wood bison, elk, moose, woodland caribou, grizzly and black bears, and wolves—and smaller species, such as beavers, snowshoe hares, Canada lynx, red squirrels, lemmings, and voles.
Nearly half of the birds in North America rely on the boreal forest at some time during the year. It is estimated that at least 3 billion landbirds, water birds, and shorebirds breed in the boreal forest each year, representing more than 300 species. Another 300 million birds, including several species of shorebirds, swans, and geese, breed farther north and travel through the boreal forest during migration. It is estimated that 32 000 insect species inhabit Canada's boreal forest, although about one third of these species have yet to be described. Canada's boreal forest is home to about 130 species of fish (including minnows, stickleback and Larger species such as including walleye, northern pike, lake trout, Arctic grayling, yellow perch, brook trout, whitefish and burbot).
It is worth re-iterating that Hard rock lithium mining involves deforestation, draining lakes and rivers, blowing the land into pieces with explosives, carving deep gashes into the Earth with giant machines, using truckloads of industrial solvents like sulfuric acid (resulting in water contamination with toxic sludge) dragging that processed rubble to processing facilities with fleets of heavy machinery then processing the ore with extremely high energy demanding furnaces using another slew of toxic chemicals (which further contaminate the water table, lakes, rivers and ocean elsewhere).
In order to illustrate the potential for catastrophic harm to ecosystems and human health that these mines pose I present a cautionary tale: The Liqi River was once full of fish: Almost none are left. Chemical spills from the Ganzizhou Rongda lithium mine have killed many. “The whole river stank, and it was full of dead yaks and dead fish,” said one villager.: “Masses” of dead fish covered the river. The people got the mine shut down three times, only to have the government reopen it. One of the elders said, “Old people, we see the mines and we cry. What are the future generations going to do? How are they going to survive?”A local activist surveyed people in the area. Even if mining companies split the profits and promised to repair the land after the mines are exhausted, the Tibetans wanted no part of it. “God is in the mountains and the rivers, these are the places that spirits live,” he explained.” “sustainable development” technology (Lithium battery tech) offers everything: every luxury, every whim, available at the touch of a ‘carbon-free’ button. But the world that these technologies provide will be a rotting, desecrated, and, finally, dead world if we let them continue on their crusade to turn the living world into dead things, for profit and to perpetuate our obscene technologically addicted human “civilization”.
In the concentrations extracted via industrial mining operations, lithium is harmful to living beings. It interferes with sperm viability, causes birth defects, memory problems, kidney failure, movement disorders, and so on. Other materials in an electric-car battery can be even more harmful than lithium, with nickel and cobalt electrodes being the most destructive component.
As I covered in a past post, about half of the cobalt used in lithium batteries comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where 40,000 children as young as four are essentially enslaved in mines, carrying backbreaking loads in conditions of intense heat, with no safety equipment, under abusive managers and guards, for a wage of a dollar a day.
Here in Canada, we may end up paying our cobalt miners more money and they may be wearing steel toes and hat hats, but the impacts on the ecosystem will be just as devastating.
There’s no circumventing the fact that these energy-storage technologies are fundamentally destructive. And they're dependent on a global supply chain and advanced manufacturing technologies that, themselves, are fundamentally destructive. Machines making machines making machines; and while more and more hyperbolic "green" headlines are written, the planet is being killed.
Next on the hit list for corporate pillaging in the name of "sustainability" is the Boreal Forest.
As described above, our corrupt corporation captured government is helping to initiate large projects to pillage the lands of indigenous peoples (Cree of Eeyou Istchee, the Shakopaatikoong peoples of the Slate Falls first nation and the Waabitigweyaang peoples of Sandy Lake, among others ) and the body of Mother Earth in new Lithium (cobalt and tantalum) mines in northern Ontario and Quebec.
Given the nature of open pit mining, lithium leeching ponds and lithium refining, the inevitable result will be large scale poisoning of the water table and the ocean in James bay, contamination of the great lakes (through lake Superior, moving downstream into all the other great lakes), deforestation and genocide of local wildlife.
These corporations intend to clear cut the boreal forest, annihilating the little bit of remaining habitat that exists in Ontario for the moose, caribou, the lynx, bears, the mountain lion, wolves, fox, bobcats, eagles, hawks and countless other winged and four legged beings will be forcibly displaced from their homes (inevitably resulting in many of them attempting to return to their homes only to starve while pacing near the fences or to be poisoned by the toxins these mines produce).
The fish in the lakes, the whales and countless other beings in James bay, they will all be decimated by these projects.
These corporations appear to be moving in fast and as quiet as possible (paying off locals with bribes along the way and getting them to sign binding agreements) to avoid local and environmentalist resistance.
These projects will mean we trade blood for lithium so we can have fun i-pads and electric cars to play with. We will be trading the ancient beauty and majesty of the Boreal forest and all it's inhabitants for smart phones and tesla cars. I can't help but ask myself this question... Is it really worth it?
In closing, I would like to humbly remind you that Each time you make a choice that nourishes, respects and enriches the living Earth, you are nourishing, respecting and enriching yourself... and each time you make a choice that degrades, harms and pillages her, you are degrading, harming and pillaging yourself.
Those that wish to walk a path guided by any kind of honest moral compass (including but not limited to the permaculture ethical imperative of People Care-Earth Care-Future Care) are going to have to make some hard choices in the coming years if we want our actions to continue to align with the principles we espouse and claim to live by.