From Natalie Lowrey :
In June last year I made the trip to Kuantan, Malaysia with my good friends Tully Starr and Baker Damian to stand in solidarity with thousands of Malaysians opposing the worlds largest rare earths refinery imposed on them by Australian rare earth miner Lynas Corporation. Sixteen of us were arrested on Sunday 20 June 2014 outside Lynas refinery in Kuantan, I was detained in a cell for 6 days. Why did I take this action? To stand in solidarity with my brothers and sisters in Malaysia who never consented to this massive development and to raise awareness about the dire environmental costs of processing rare earths which are in our smart phones, hybrid cars and ‘green’ technologies. The drive for rare earths is rapidly growing going beyond just our lands and now into our deep seas.
This following article highlights the dystopia created by this industry, in this case in inner Mongolia. Lets not make the same mistakes as we move into a ‘green’ technologies world with renewable energies that we have with the industrial revolution. We can move to clean technologies and renewable energies safely if we consider the whole cycle to create these technologies, from the cradle to the grave – we have to consider a circular economy and urban mining as well as seriously reducing, reusing and recycling. Do you think we can do this? Are we just going to keep repeating the same mistakes? Can we move to a world we energy sovereignty can exist, that the rights of all peoples are heard especially those that we continue to exploit through land grabs and forced evictions?
The dystopian lake filled by the world’s tech lust
Hidden in an unknown corner of China is a toxic, nightmarish lake created by our thirst for smartphones, gadgets and green tech, discovers Tim Maughan.
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