The United States’s transition to electric cars is a good idea, while countries around the planet are on a run to go green and make choices that reduce carbon footprint. the US on the same lines has chosen to convert the existing car Fleet to electric vehicles and slowly move away from private cars as the primary means of travel .
Now as brilliant as the idea is there is another side of the coin, the US has transitioned to electric vehicles could require three times as much lithium as is currently produced for the entire Global Market. this in turn will cause needless water shortages , indigenous land grabs and ecosystem destruction inside and outside of its borders .
According to a new research it is estimated that the transition to lithium battery-powered electric vehicles by the year 2050 will deepen Global Environmental and social inequalities . linked to Mining and may even jeopardize the 1.5 degrees Celsius Global heating Target. lithium represents a route out of our alliance on fossil fuel production as one of the lightest known metals on the planet .
It is now widely used in electric devices and mobile phones , and laptops to cars and aircraft it is literally everywhere. these batteries are the key to lightweight rechargeable power and as it stands demand for lithium the white gold is unprecedented , and many say that it is crucial in order to transition to Renewables.
However this doesn’t come with outer cost mining the chemical element can be harmful to the environment. lithium extraction requires millions of liters of water per plant per day . approximately 2.2 million liters of water is needed to produce one ton of lithium.
Moreover any type of resource extraction are harmful to the planet. this is because removing these raw materials can result in soil degradation, water shortages, biodiversity loss , damage to the ecosystem functions and an increase in global warming. but you must be wondering, when we are talking about extraction we should be telling you about fossil fuels like coal and gas . but lithium also falls under the same umbrella ,
Despite Paving the way for an electric future lithium can be described as the non-renewable mineral that makes renewable energy possible often touted as the next Oil . moreover according to a report by friends of the earth lithium extraction inevitably harms the soil and causes air contamination , and as demand Rises the mining impacts are affecting the communities as well. where this harmful extraction takes place.
Transportation is the biggest source of carbon emissions in the U.S and the only sector in which emissions are still Rising . making it crucial to phase out gas and diesel vehicles as quickly as possible to limit the climate breakdown.
However President Biden’s strategy to fully decarbonize the transformation sector by 2050 put some focus on mass transit and land use planning . but so far the messaging and funds have been geared towards encouraging Americans to swap cars for electric vehicles rather than change the way they travel.
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