Re:Left-wing party opposed to rare earth mining project wins...
by zepto on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @11:47AM
(#26726603)
> Agreeing to develop the mine in Greenland doesn’t even meaningfully address your (myopic) worldview about stopping Chinese domination of rare earth supplies.
I agree with everything in your comment, except for where you say that the parent’s idea is myopic.
Why do you think that?
Re:Left-wing party opposed to rare earth mining project wins...
by nicklecompte on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @12:15PM
(#26727035)
I meant that it’s a serious geopolitical problem but that the parent was suggesting it is a paramount concern, and that stopping said domination is worth any cost. The parent says this:
> the end result of this thinking is that critical stuff like electric cars, wind turbines, etc is completely dependent on a totalitarian country
while ignoring that the end result of their thinking is a race-to-the-bottom of nations poisoning their own people to combat China. It’s why I think they are being myopic - they are taking environmental devastation as a given and arguing that China must be stopped at all costs. (Not to mention the conflation of “resources not physically in China” with “non-Chinese resources” which, as stated above, is not actually true here).
A major reason why the mine is being opposed is that a lackadaisical approach to toxic / radioactive waste is not in fact endemic to rare earth mining. It is seemingly endemic in multinational state-corporate enterprises (on which Greenlanders will have very little influence, cf the Malaysian government’s experience with that mine, which was also owned/administered by an Australian company).