So, it looks like we are deliberately making the choice to use technology and the almighty digital power of big data to somehow connect everything that can be connected.
And the story goes that this alone will allow us to save electricity and water, make us more efficient and transition to sustainable and clean sources of energy.
But think about all the minerals needed for the chips inside all the things that we want to connect. The smart meters that measure your water or electricity consumption, the sensors inside your new fancy self-driving car, for the alarm system in your home, for the VR set that allows you to get into the metaverse, for the servers that power the new games in that multiverse, for the new smart clothing that will cool you down because it’s too hot outside, for the smart fridge that tells how much milk is left inside your smart bottle, for your smart coffee maker that will make a cappuccino delivered just for you because the algorithms know you even better than you do yourself, and on and on and on. It’s endless innovation but unfortunately futile too.
Some experts are indeed starting to pull the alarm bell. All this transformation requires an incredible amount of natural resources, something human history has never ever seen and witnessed. It’s like that snake eating its own tail.
As we highlighted in our previous post, we are about to use 30% to 90% of known natural reserves of all essential minerals in the coming 30 years.
And all experts agree about the disastrous environmental effect of a mine. Some of these impacts are actually permanent. In Europe, the destructive impact of Roman gold mines exploited 2,000 years ago still continues today. It is very likely that the same will happen with the mines we are exploiting nowadays. This rush on natural mining resources expected in the next 30 years, all done in the blind faith that it will save the earth, will actually destroy it.
There is a myth that we all need to tone down in our collective minds. It’s a myth about mining. That myth is best shown in Charlie Chaplin’s movie “The Gold Rush” in 1925. It tells the story of gold diggers who rushed to the mountains of California hoping to make instant fortune. All these gold diggers rushed with their simple tools in the middle of 19th century, pulled by the overcredulity that all you had to do was to just look through some rubbles and dirt, and that your fortune would be made.
But that is far from reality, really, really far from it.
The truth is that in order to find 1 gram of gold, one tiny little gram, you need to move 1 ton of dirt. Yes 1,000 kilograms !!! That’s 0.0001% of the dirt you are moving. But the only way to extract that 1 tiny little gram, is to actually use a lot of chemicals, the kind of stuff that does not evaporate just like that. The kind of stuff that poisons soils for quite a while, and even for ever. So you first have to destroy entire mountains, and then poison the soils, for ever, all this in the name of our smartphones and fancy electronic toys.
But if that was only about gold, then we could almost say that we could live with it. In fact, the other minerals are also quite scary. For platinum, 1,000 kilograms of dirt would give you between 3 and 15 grams of platinum. For lithium, the percentage ranges between 0.05% to 0.15%; for uranium it’s 0.1% to 0.3%; for copper it’s 0.3% to 2%; for cobalt it’s 0.5% to 2.5%. And the list goes on. So think about the mountains that need to be destroyed.
So as you see, all these new sustainable technologies do have to rely on these resources. As a result, in order to implement these technologies that we believe will save the planet, we are actually accelerating its destruction.
We are indeed trying to save the planet by destroying it.
So, in the end, it looks like we are doing all this just to be able to maintain our life style. All this is done in order to rearrange the chairs on the deck. But the ship is sinking, and it will go so much faster if we don’t realize that it is time to rub our eyes and wake up from that delusion.
Perhaps the real question is as follows; should we all start to adjust our life style? And here the question has to be addressed to richer nations.
May be it starts with something as simple as walking or biking? But there too, we also have to ask ourselves about inequality. Those who can afford to walk and bike in richer nations are precisely those who are at the top of the scale. They can walk and bike because they do have the means and income to live not too far from where they work. While for those who live far enough from an urban center, because rents are too high, then they have to use a car, very often an old car, because that’s all they can afford, or have a very long daily commute.
That’s why inflation cannot be transitory as we have been told just a few months ago by central bankers. Because in order to extract all that stuff within the next 30 years, a lot of water will be needed, among other things. Water that will necessarily come from local communities that were using it to grow their much needed crops and food, to nourish themselves and raise their families. Water that will become increasingly scarce and which is part of every single value chain. Every single object in your house has to rely on water for its manufacturing.
Indeed, in order to pull that stuff from the ground, everything else will have to be made more scarce. Hence the inflationary pressure that becomes unavoidable.
And guess what, because of that increased competition for resources, it also leads to wars. Peace Pilgrim understood that many decades ago and that’s why she decided to keep walking.
Let me know if you have any other questions and feel free to comment.
References: In French: “Ruée Minière au XXIe Siècle” by Aurore Stephant.