Posted on 12/07/2021 4:16:37 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
PALAWAN, Philippines – Jeminda Bartolome spends her days at the foot of a lush mountain range tending to her rice paddies. A mother of six, she leads a group of farmers and members of the Indigenous Palawan tribe who believe the crop is endowed with a human soul.
“That,” she said on a recent afternoon pointing toward her farmland, “is our source of livelihood.”
A nickel mine stretching nearly 4 square miles scars the forest above Bartolome’s farmland. The mine, Rio Tuba, plays a vital role in satisfying the global demand for a mineral more coveted than ever due in part to the explosion of the electric car industry.
The raw nickel dug out of the ground here ends up in the lithium batteries of plug-in vehicles manufactured by Tesla, Toyota and other automakers.
Local environmentalists fear that it will wipe out the forest’s fragile ecosystem and increase toxic runoff into the rivers that flow past the farmland down below, jeopardizing the crops.
“What is at stake there is the life and survival of the people in the communities,” said Grizelda Mayo-Anda, an environmental lawyer and professor in Palawan.
Electric cars are hailed as a climate-friendly alternative to the gas-guzzling vehicles that have long ruled America’s roads. Experts agree that they create a lower carbon footprint than traditional cars.
But the controversy over the planned mine expansion highlights an often overlooked reality: manufacturing electric cars, even when done responsibly, still takes a toll on the environment.
The move to expand the mine comes as the destruction of the world’s rainforests, which play a crucial role in protecting wildlife and slowing climate change, is accelerating.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Yes we all should go back to grubbing in the ground worrying about the next crop failure.
gone are the rik shaws most liberal progressive radicals in this country would like us all to embrace
Electric vehicles actually would make great sense in Manila. There are very few if any at the moment.
This article is making me weep. I was born in Suyok, Luzon, PI, spent almost 4 years in a Japanese concentration camp (never hear about that aspect of WWII, do you?), was liberated by men including MacArthur who cared about Americans and came to the States. We almost immediately returned to the PI where we lived until I was 12. I did not know I was a white person until that return to the States. It was shocking.
I consider the PI to be “home” even though I have never returned to the beautiful Islands. I do love the United States and am grateful for the bounty we have here. But I wonder if Americans can ignore the “bounty” in consideration for the people who actually have the bounty. And I wonder if the effects of destruction of the land to acquire that bounty is ever reflected in consideration of profit for white people vs people’s lives destroyed by collecting the bounty.
I know our government considers America first. I read about it all the time. I also read that we send millions if not billions of bucks to the governments saying they need our assistance. Really? How is the money actually used? I wonder.
I also wonder how the people who are run off their properties actually survive. In truth I never know and I don’t know if they are pleased with their own government’s choices about how the people are then able to live.
Who in the Philippines, except for conglomerates, will be able to afford E-vehicles?
I heard about it. My uncle died on the Bataan Death March. I spend a lot of time in Davao.
“Baylon, the Nickel Asia spokesman, pushed back at the idea that the mine was contaminating the water. He said Rio Tuba’s initial sampling in December 1996 showed ‘escalated values of hexavalent chromium in nickel mining water before the peak of the mining operation.’”
The song always remains the same.
No bias reporting here...
Fascinating
I am bothered by the way western nations signal their green virtue because all the ugly polluting stuff goes on in third world nations.
The US must eschew coal in favor of wind and solar farms, but it’s ok to destroy other natiins’ environments for what we need to be so green.
It’s the bad part of colonialism all over again.
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