'The Sacrifice Zone': Myanmar bears cost of green energy

A depiction of a rare earth mining operation in Myanmar. , and the herbs no longer grow. The fish no longer swim in rivers that have turned a murky brown. The animals do not roam, and the cows are sometimes found dead.forest have lost a way of life that goes back generations. But if they complain, they, too, face the threat of death.

About a third of the companies responded. Of those, about two-thirds didn't or wouldn't comment on their sourcing, including Volkswagen, which said it was conducting due diligence for rare earths. Nearly all said they took environmental protection and human rights seriously. In 2010, in response to war in the Congo, Congress required companies to disclose the origin of so-called conflict minerals — tantalum, tin, gold and tungsten — and promise their sourcing does not benefit armed groups. But the law does not cover rare earths. Audits are left up to individual companies, and no single agency is held accountable.

“What would be the result if now the world would say, ‘We want to do ESG audits on all rare earths production’?” said Thomas Kruemmer, director of Ginger International Trade Then, stung by public criticism, officials in Beijing declared war on the country’s dirty industries, including rare earths mining. At a 2012 press conference in Beijing, a top Chinese industry official brandished photos of the devastation — pockmarked land stripped bare of vegetation.For years, Guo, a former car repairman, earned a handsome living after joining the booming rare earths industry in his native Jiangxi province.

“Environmental controls have become much stricter,” said a government trade researcher, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media. “That’s why imports have increased. It’s better to get rare earths from abroad.” Guo said yes, joining what he describes as a modern-day gold rush. He recounted primitive working conditions, including clouds of mosquitoes and nights spent burning logs in ramshackle cabins. The miners dug hundreds of feet deep with shovels and their bare, callused hands.He and other Chinese workers in Myanmar described a web of small, unlicensed private mines that sell to China’s big state-owned mining conglomerates — directly or through trade intermediaries.

The sacrifice is visible from the air, in toxic turquoise pools that dot the landscape covered by mountain jungles just a few years ago. Since rare earth clays in Myanmar are soft and near the surface, they can easily be scooped into these pools of chemicals. Satellite imagery commissioned by Global Witness showed more than 2,700 of these pools at almost 300 separate locations.

But but but electric cars!

Right!!! It isn’t The Lying White House’s destruction!! Coal bank, oil spill, control the masses with fear!!

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