They sell us electric cars and wind turbines as the ultimate solution against climate change. But to manufacture a 500-kilo battery, tons of earth are moved in Chile or Bolivia, entire rivers are diverted, and according to UN reports, minors are working in cobalt mines in the Congo. We trade oil dependency for another, equally dirty, but with a green wrapping.
The real cost of the energy transition 🌍
Each 3 MW wind turbine requires about 300 tons of steel, 4 tons of copper, and rare earths extracted with sulfuric acid. An electric vehicle requires six times more minerals than a combustion one. Meanwhile, in the Salar de Uyuni, lithium is pumped with fresh water, drying up ancient wetlands. The ecological footprint of technological salvation is a 400-meter-wide crater. It is not sustainable, it is shifting the problem.
The dilemma of progress: applauding with your phone while the earth melts 📱
The best part is that the armchair environmentalist can feel like a hero from their sofa. Buy a Tesla with a click, hang a poster of a windmill in the living room, and share Greta memes. But they shouldn't look too closely at the phone they tweet from, because it contains coltan extracted under semi-slavery conditions. Consistency is like lithium: scarce, expensive, and buried under tons of hypocrisy.