ECOLOGIC IMPACT AND CONSEQUENCES OF CHOICES
On April 26, 2023, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm declared at the U.S. Senate Arms Services Committee that the military will have an EV fleet by 2030. She stated that this will reduce the volatility on globally traded fossil fuels which impedes energy security. She believes by going electric we are being environmentally and energy conscious. This will preserve the future for our soldiers, their families and Americans to come. While EV’s will reduce the need for fossil fuels, dependence on materials used in battery production will increase.
Materials used in battery production require cobalt, nickel and lithium which are extracted using environmentally damaging methods. It takes 500,000 gallons of water to extract one ton of lithium. For example, studies have shown that mining takes up approximately 65% of the water in Solar de Atacama Chile. Chile accounts for nearly one third of global lithium production (39 thousand metric tons). 50% of the worlds cobalt reserves are in the volatile Democratic Republic of the Congo. 20% of cobalt is mined in central Africa where 40,000 children work in deplorable conditions. The dust from the excavation contains toxic metals including uranium which is linked to respiratory disease and birth defects.(mining.com)(1) Is this what progress looks like? How is depending on foreign countries for vital materials in battery production being energy independent. (theguardian.com)(2)
George Orwell stated that the most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history. Lets revisit the U.S. nuclear arms program. The U.S. government conducted nuclear tests on the Marshal Islands and the Atoll Islands starting in 1946. The Pacific Proving Grounds was secured to the United States by the United Nations. The most visible scar from the series of U.S. nuclear tests were at the Bikini Atoll Islands In 1977 a temporary measure to contain the radioactive material left behind from bomb explosions was completed on Runit Island. The US army bulldozed more than 100,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris in a bomb crater. It was capped with hundreds of 18-inch thick concrete slabs. The debris contains plutonium-239 which has a half life of 24,000 years. Also in 1958 U.S. authorities shipped 130 tons of contaminated soil from its atomic testing grounds in Nevada to the Islands A decade later in 1968, The Department of Defense set up new equipment to test biological weapons. The U.S. government scientists came to Enewatak Island with boats, monkeys and planes, and sprayed staphylococcal enterotoxin B (bacterial agent that causes toxic shock in food). U.S. troops were stationed nearby at Lojua Island (3) 46 years have passed, the concrete dome has cracked and sea levels have risen. The U.S. government created an ecological disaster that exist today.
From 1998 - 2015 the Pentagon cannot account for 21 trillion dollars in undocumented transactions.(4) President Dwight Eisenhower warned about the Military Industrial Complex in his farewell speech on January 17, 1961 (Watch on YouTube). In his speech he also mentions 1) Avoid the temptation to live today and not plunder today’s natural resources at the expenses of future generations. 2) Dangers of becoming captive of the technological elites. 3) Avoid being a community of dreadful and hate. 4) Don’t let the weapons business and special interests run the country. Was this a speech or prophecy?
(1) mining.com article dated 10/09/2022
(2) theguardian.com article dated 1/18/2016 by Annie Kelley
(3) LAtimes.com article dated 11/10/2019 by Susanne Rust. 2002 military fact sheet, Ed Regis author of “The Biology of Doom”.
(4) Forbes article dated 1/09/19 by Laurence Kotikoff