The ecological crisis of our age is global warming. Clean mining is important, but it should not be the overriding factor. I agree that the total emissions from production to end of life are important, though
>The ecological crisis of our age is global warming. Clean mining is important, but it should not be the overriding factor.
As a Danish I was surprised to see so many adult Americans and Germans blame climate change on dirty streets and rivers in India and not the GHG emissions from developed countries (and our Chinese factories).
Or maybe it's willful ignorance to protect important GHG emission intensive industries in the US and Germany.
Nuance. The developed world is rapidly transitioning to clean energy and mobility while India and China are building GW of coal fired generation (but also deploying renewables at a quick pace). Everyone needs to move in the right direction, and all tools should be on the table to disincentivize carbon emissions (subsidies, tariffs, etc). I would like robust waste disposal systems adopted in the developing world so we stop filling the ocean with plastic (10 rivers in the world are responsible for the majority of ocean plastics), but I also understand that is not driving GHG emissions (which is the most pressing existential crisis for humanity imho).
I meant the weird focus on dirty streets, rivers and other non-GHG pollution in the developing world when it is GHG emissions from the developed world that is the most pressing existential crisis.
Do you understand that we did the same to advance to the level of wealth and technology we have? The only way to stop China and India from doing the same is war. There is no way that telling billions of people that they can't have what we have wont be construed as an act of agression.
Yep, that’s is likely what will happen. There aren’t enough resources for everyone to live like the developed world, so resource contention will be an ongoing issue as we approach 10 billion people in 2100.
Edit: renewable energy will blunt this due to simply how much energy the sun throws on the earth every minute. Fertilizers, minerals, fauna reserves and replenishment rates are going to be a challenge.
