The electric car is not a way out.

 originally published May 3, 2021

The electric car is not a way out.

There is no way to consume our way out of global ecological crisis.
There is likely not enough recoverable lithium in the entire world to make enough electric cars to replace current fossil fuel cars. And the way that lithium is mined is by carving up some of the last wild places in the world into strip mines. Look at pictures of strip mines.
There is no way to consume our way out of global ecological crisis.
Hundreds of thousands of acres of habitat are being turned into solar farms to power groundwater extraction and casinos and massive cities in the middle of the desert.
Joshua trees. Old growth yucca. Deep-rooted sage grass prairies. Ephemeral wetlands crucial to migratory birds. Ancient cryptobiotic soils that are the foundation of the desert food web.
Billions of people do not save the planet as a livable human biosphere by consuming the same amount of stuff, whatever it is, when it is made on an industrial scale based on extracting material from the earth without nurturing and returning what was taken.
We survive as a species only when we can live without creating sacrifice zones, somehow deluding ourselves into believing that we are somehow separate and safe from our own violence.
There is no way to consume our way out of global ecological crisis.

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