By Katy Spence
MEIC staff has long participated in the Western Mining Action Network (WMAN), a coalition of anti-hard rock mining advocates across North America. In fact, former MEIC Executive Director Jim Jensen was one of the founding members. The group makes concerted efforts to elect and follow Indigenous leaders, many of whom are on the frontlines of defending against damaging mines, cleaning up mine waste, and pushing for more just solutions to the climate crisis.
Derf Johnson is on the steering committee of WMAN, and Katy Spence recently attended the biennial conference in Montreal. As part of MEIC’s anti-racism audit in 2023, it’s part of our ongoing efforts to identify and name areas where we can improve on justice issues. Between conversations and workshops at the WMAN conference, it’s become increasingly clear that the call for electrification in the climate movement has the potential to leave many Indigenous people behind (and in fact, cause them harm) in pursuit of solutions to this global crisis.
Multiple reports cite that more than 50% of the minerals needed for electrification are on or adjacent to Indigenous lands. While at the conference, Indigenous advocates from across the U.S. and Canada shared story after story of battles against mines that are claiming to be solving the climate crisis: companies mine a litany of “critical minerals” ostensibly for renewable technologies like EV and solar batteries and nuclear fuel. In many cases, the Tribes are not consulted, informed, or compensated for these mining efforts, nor is the mining pollution properly cleaned. One attendee and longtime advocate, Earl Hatley, said the Superfund site on his ancestral lands is the first ever listed, and it has not been fully remediated even after several decades. In fact, companies are looking to re-mine the tailings pile on this project, rather than cleaning it up – a scenario all too similar to what the Fort Belknap Indian Community has experienced as a result of the Zortman-Landusky gold mine (pictured upper right).
In Montana, we’re no strangers to the damaging effects of mining and the undeniable fact that mining irrevocably changes landscapes and water for the worse. But the impacts of the climate crisis are bringing increased heat, decreased precipitation, and more extreme weather events to the state as well. Many climate advocates find themselves caught in between a rock and a hard place when considering the tension between preventing harm to Indigenous people and the urgent need for decarbonization.
But perhaps it’s not so complicated.
Celia Izoard, keynote speaker at the WMAN conference, posed a simple but compelling question to the crowd: “Why is the biggest environmental problem of all time being solved by the most polluting industry ever known?”
Nuclear energy, for example, is dangerous from the time uranium is pulled from the earth to the time its waste must be buried back into it. There is no safe way to extract and use uranium, and the claims that nuclear power is more carbon-free than other energy generation is patently false. WMAN presenters shared sources that show how nuclear companies conflate and twist numbers to exclude the full life cycle of uranium extraction from calculating the carbon footprint of power generation — it’s not nearly as carbon-free as they want us to believe. In addition, a by-product of generating nuclear power is plutonium, a key ingredient in nuclear weaponry (no wonder the U.S. government wants to heavily subsidize the industry). Many Indigenous groups around the world, including on the Navajo Nation in the Southwest U.S., have experienced extreme harms of uranium mining, from cancers caused by extracting the ore itself to perpetually polluted water to violence from pro-mining opposition.
Celia Izoard pointed out that mining companies want people to think the solution to climate change is new technologies that require more minerals be mined. But Indigenous leaders know and have known better: this is another ruse from the most polluting industry on earth so they can continue doing what they’ve always done – destroying landscapes, extracting metals from the ground, poisoning water, making enormous profits, and abandoning their messes. In many cases, “critical” minerals are not even being used for renewable energy projects; they’re being used by the Department of Defense and U.S. military, and mining companies are hiding behind green energy as an excuse to get federal incentives such as speedy permitting and subsidies.
It’s challenging to let go of a solution that feels as graspable as developing wind turbines, solar panels, and storage batteries, but it should be equally as challenging to face the reality of what that solution could mean for Indigenous communities. Perhaps luckily for many of us, Indigenous leaders have pointed to a slough of options that can help mitigate the climate crisis without leaving them behind.
- EV batteries and batteries for solar storage can and are being made with more readily-available materials that don’t need to be mined: batteries made from hemp, recycled iron, or even salt are proving to be as effective as lithium batteries. It’s inevitable that mining companies may try to stall or even prevent these projects, so it’s imperative that supporters speak up and express there is a demand for these products.
- Earthworks has reported that mineral recycling can reduce the need for new mining for materials in lithium batteries 25%-55%. Again, we need to express to our electeds and private industries that these processes need to be widely available, regulated, enforced, and just.
- “Planned obsolescence” seems to come for everything these days; nothing lasts as long as it used to – by design. Several burgeoning movements are calling for a return to a time when clothing, furniture, and other items were made to last and could be repaired, reducing consumption and demand for new products. It’s time to demand high quality products and the right to fix what’s broken – we just need regulations and the willpower to push for these solutions.
- The cleanest (and cheapest) energy is that which is not used at all. Energy efficient solutions at the site of generation, through transmission, and at the destination can reduce the amount of energy lost and, thus, required. Grid Enhancing Technologies (GETs) can adapt to electricity load on the line in real time, ensuring the amount that is transmitted is the amount that’s needed. In homes and buildings, better insulation, more efficient windows, and advanced lightbulbs save a surprising amount of electricity, reducing the overall demand.
- Find, follow, and learn from Indigenous leaders who deserve to be heard. Honor the Earth and Indigenous Climate Action are just two of many groups that are raising awareness about “green colonialism,” in which Indigenous lands are being sacrificed for the purpose of mining minerals.
There’s a path forward that earnestly battles the climate crisis AND considers the health and well-being of people impacted by mining – especially Indigenous people. After all, what good is saving the planet from the climate crisis if we’ve mined it to oblivion in the process?
Image via Earthworks.
This article was published in the December 2024 issue of Down To Earth.
