Lithium

The Search For Green Common Ground

October 17, 2024 Emmett Hopkins, In These Times. Organize! Communities, Electric Vehicles, Green Transition, Lithium, Transportation, Worker Rights and Jobs

Last fall, indigenous organizers in northern Chile walked the perimeter of vast salt flats, in a region where multinational mining companies control lithium evaporation ponds and other mineral extraction operations that have been documented to inflict damage against local peoples’ sacred and life-sustaining lands. Five thousand miles to the north, auto workers in Michigan prepared to walk off the job at noon to demand, in addition to decent pay and working conditions, the inclusion of workers at the companies’ expanding electric vehicle (EV) and battery operations.

Europe’s Thirst For Green Imperialism In Serbia

September 5, 2024 Revolutionary People’s Party-Front, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Europe, Green Imperialism, Imperialism, Lithium, NATO, Serbia, Western imperialism

On the 18th of June 2024, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany visited Serbia. The two countries signed an agreement to give mining permits to German industrialists in the lithium-rich region of Jadar in Western Serbia. This will enable Germany to continue to compete with China’s manufacturing capabilities. Mass protests are ongoing in Serbia against this project and the selling of natural resources with complete disregard for the environmental ramifications. This deal between Serbia and Germany comes amidst imperialist tactics that are unfairly trying to compete with China’s advancements in the mass production of electric vehicles (EVs) through tax hikes on Chinese EVs and making Europeans hoard the market share without fair competition.

Serbians Protest Rio Tinto’s Lithium Mining Project

August 11, 2024 Ana Vračar, People's Dispatch. Resist! European Union (EU), Lithium, Mining, Rio Tinto, Serbia

Mass protests have erupted across Serbia in response to Rio Tinto’s reignited plan to develop a lithium mining project in the west of the country. Thousands of people have taken to the streets in over 40 locations, with a major demonstration planned for August 10 in Belgrade. Protesters are demanding that the government pass a law to block the exploitation of lithium and boron, warning that they are prepared to escalate actions if their demands are not met. Nebojša Petković of the platform Ne damo Jadar (We Won’t Give up Jadar) has stated that targeted blockades may be organized. Protesters have raised concerns about the devastating environmental impact Rio Tinto’s Jadar Project would have.

Mining Lithium In Europe’s (Semi) Periphery

July 14, 2024 Nina Djukanović, Lefteast. Strategize! Europe, Imperialism, Lithium, Mining, sacrifice zone, The Balkans

Perhaps more than any other material, lithium has, in recent years, been increasingly presented as the silver bullet for the so-called twin transition—the digital and the green transitions. Lithium is essential to most conventional batteries used in diverse technologies, from phones and laptops to increasingly and overwhelmingly so in electric vehicles. It has become the symbol of growth-based solutions to climate change where technological fixes, rather than more equitable and just structural changes, take the primary role. Escalating concerns within the EU regarding its material sovereignty and security have been intensified by the conflict in Ukraine and the growing awareness about China’s dominance of the battery supply chain, as well as other green technologies.

Thacker Pass Protectors File First-Ever ‘Biodiversity Necessity Defense’

March 27, 2024 Max Wilbert, Last Real Indians. Resist! Biodiversity, Environmental Justice, Indigenous Activism, Lithium, Necessity defense, Nevada, Thacker Pass

Winnemuca, Nevada — In a first for the American legal system, the lawyers for six people sued by Lithium Nevada Corporation for protesting the Thacker Pass mine are arguing a ‘biodiversity necessity defense.’ The necessity defense is a legal argument used to justify breaking the law when a greater harm is being prevented; for example, breaking a car window to save an infant locked inside on a stifling hot day, or breaking down a door to help someone screaming inside a locked home. In these cases, trespassing is justified to save a life.

SOUTHCOM Chief: United States Has A ‘5-Year Plan’ For Ecuador

January 26, 2024 Orinoco Tribune. Educate! Ecuador, gang violence, Lithium, SouthCom, US Imperialism

The commander of the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), General Laura Richardson, stated that the United States has a “five-year plan” in terms of security for Ecuador. “There are several things that we have done very recently with Ecuador,” General Richardson said in an interview with the Ecuadorian media Primicius on Tuesday, January 23. “For example, we have the Security Assistance Roadmap, called ESAR, with Ecuador. There is only one other country in the region with which we have signed this roadmap.” According to Richardson, the ESAR is a five-year plan that outlines “cooperation in security matters,” and it includes a binational working group to facilitate the exchange “between the Pentagon and Ecuador.”

‘You Can’t Mine Your Way Out Of A Climate Crisis’

September 13, 2023 Brandi Morin and Geordie Day, The Real News Network. Resist! Indigenous Rights, Joe Biden, Lithium, Nevada, Thacker Pass

In Nevada’s remote Thacker Pass, a fight for our future is playing out between local Indigenous tribes and powerful state and corporate entities hellbent on mining the lithium beneath their land. Vancouver-based Lithium Americas is developing a massive lithium mine at Thacker Pass, but for more than two years several local tribes and environmental organizations have tried to block or delay the mine in the courts and through direct action. The Thacker Pass Project is backed by the Biden administration, and companies like General Motors have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the project, looking to capitalize on the transition to a “green energy economy,” for which lithium is essential.

Indigenous Resistance Challenges Ontario’s ‘Mining Boom’

August 8, 2023 Owen Schalk, Canadian Dimension. Resist! Canada, Indigenous Resistance, Indigenous Sovereignty, Lithium, Mining

As Canada’s governments hungrily scour domestic and foreign territory in search of critical minerals—an essential part of Ottawa’s new Cold War on China—Ontario Premier Doug Ford is attempting to spin demand into a provincial mining boom. Ontario’s first-ever Critical Minerals Strategy (CMS), announced alongside a federal initiative of the same name, proclaims that the province is “incredibly fortunate” and “blessed with exquisite deposits of nickel, lithium, platinum, cobalt and dozens of other strategically important raw materials.” Ford’s economic policies are catering to mining companies that yearn for unfettered access to these resource supplies, even as Indigenous communities organize to resist the extractivist bonanza.

The Afghanistan Lithium Great Game

July 27, 2023 Binoy Kampmark, Counter Punch. Educate! Afghanistan, Lithium, Sanctions, US Imperialism

While the United States, along with its allies, left Afghanistan in August 2021 in spectacularly humiliating circumstances, the departure was never entirely complete, nor bound to be permanent. Since then, Washington has led the charge in handicapping those who, with a fraction of the resources, defeated a superpower and prevailed in two decades of conflict. In a fit of wounded pride, the United States has, in turn, sought to strangulate and asphyxiate the Taliban regime, citing human rights and security concerns. The Taliban’s Interim Foreign Minister, Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi, makes the not unreasonable point that “the ongoing crisis is the imposition of sanctions and banking restrictions by the United States.”

Lithium Nevada Lawsuit Aims To Stop Praying At Sacred Site

June 21, 2023 Last Real Indians. Educate! Indigenous Rights, Lithium, Mining, Nevada, Sacred sites

Reno, Nevada — Lithium Nevada Corporation has filed a lawsuit against Protect Thacker Pass and seven people for opposing the Thacker Pass lithium mine. The lawsuit is similar to what is called a “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation,” or SLAPP suit, aimed at shutting down free speech and protest. The suit aims to ban the prayerful land defenders from the area and force them to pay monetary damages which could total millions of dollars. “This lawsuit is targeting Native Americans and their allies for a non-violent prayer to protect the 1865 Thacker Pass massacre site,” said Terry Lodge, attorney working with the group.

Ox Sam Camp Being Raided

June 8, 2023 Ox Sam Camp, Facebook. Resist! Indigenous Activism, Lithium, Mining, Nevada, Sacred sites

Orovada, NV — This morning, a group of Native American water protectors and allies used their bodies to non-violently block construction of the controversial Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada, turning back bulldozers and heavy equipment. The dramatic scene unfolded this morning as workers attempting to dig trenches near Sentinel Rock were turned back by land defenders who ran and put their bodies between heavy equipment and the land. Now they are being arrested and camp is being raided. Northern Paiute and Western Shoshone people consider Thacker Pass to be sacred.

Ox Sam Camp/PeeHee Mu’Huh Ordered To Leave Or Face Arrest

May 22, 2023 Last Real Indians. Resist! Blockade, Indigenous Rights, Lithium, Nevada, Sacred sites

Orovada, Nevada — For nearly two and a half years, local Native American tribes and leaders have been trying to stop the Thacker Pass lithium project, an open-pit mine that will destroy a sacred site. But despite lawsuits, rallies, regulatory hearings, and community organizing, Lithium Nevada Corporation has now begun construction of the mine at the place Paiutes call “Peehee Mu’huh,” or rotten moon. But the construction has not gone unopposed. On May 11th, Native Americans from the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone and other regional tribes set up a tipi at Thacker Pass and began prayers directly in the path of the construction of Lithium Nevada’s water pipeline.

Tipi Erected At Thacker Pass; Law Enforcement Issues Final Warning

May 14, 2023 Ken Cosentino, Last Real Indians. Resist! Environment, Indigenous Sovereignty, Lithium, Mining

Peehee Mu'huh, Nevada - On Thursday, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s department issued a final warning to Indigenous land defenders at Thacker Pass. Members of law enforcement are demanding that the land defenders vacate a service road leading into the lithium mining operation. The Indigenous land defenders have erected a tipi on a proposed water line, set to feed lithium development at the rate of 500,000 gallons for every ton of lithium processed. Dorece Sam, an enrolled member of the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, spoke during a Facebook livestream on Friday, saying “Mother’s Day is coming up. This here is our mother - Mother Earth, and we want to protect her.

Lithium Mining Wreaks Havoc On Our Planet

May 8, 2023 Ken Cosentino, Last Real Indians. Educate! climate crisis, Electric Cars, Environment, Lithium

Up until now, modern society has largely depended on oil and coal for our energy supply. Virtually all reputable scientists now agree that climate change is real and the science behind it is sound. It is a naturally occurring phenomena which mankind has accelerated due to capitalism and consumerism. Almost every civilized country on the planet has entered into the Paris Agreement with the combined goal of lowering carbon emissions 45% by the year 2030. On paper, this all sounds wonderful. The burning fossil fuels for energy and the production of plastic, and production of automobiles which rely on gasoline for combustion engines; are both notorious contributors to the carbon emission problem.

Peruvian Coup Regime Approves Lithium Mining As Puno Rejects Plan

April 29, 2023 Clau O'Brien Moscoso, Black Agenda Report. Resist! coup, Lithium, Mining, Nationalization, Peru

The Peruvian coup regime remains entrenched in power more than four months after the parliamentary coup that ousted democratically elected President Pedro Castillo. On April 10th, the de facto Minister of Energy and Mines Óscar Vera announced the coup government would grant permits to Macusani Yellowcake , subsidiary of Canadian mining company Plateau Energy Metals, which as of 2021 is a subsidiary of American Lithium in the Macusani town of the Puno region. This comes in the wake of the anti-coup protests that placed lithium as one of the main resources the coup government, serving its transnational corporate interests, would move swiftly to privatize.

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