Mining isn’t the only option --- recycling and reducing waste can help fuel energy transition
Klinger, 23 --- Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Delaware, where she teaches in the Minerals, Materials, and Society Program (January 23, 2023, Julie Michelle Klinger, “Does Our Sustainable Future Start in the Mine? Rare earth mining will disrupt local climate resilience. Who should pay the price?” https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/our-sustainable-future-starts-in-the-mine/, JMP))
Finally, the intense debate around where to open new mines can create the impression that mining is the only option. This is another major blind spot. Yes, the data for the renewable energy transition and building a circular economy indicates that mining must be part of any pathway forward, but it should be second to recycling and reduced wastefulness. Mining in a climate-smart way requires care and democratic deliberation, not haste and authoritarianism. This requires more time than the climate emergency would seem to allow, but we can buy ourselves greater resource security as well as some more time and space to think carefully about mining in socially and environmentally responsible ways if we instead focus on dramatically and immediately scaling up recycling rare earths from electronic waste and current mine tailings. Yes, these are complex and costly propositions, but so too is mining. The difference is that rare earth rich “waste” is abundant; places that can be mined without major climate compromise are not.