(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) A recent report revealed that the United State’s hasty transition to only electric vehicles will require triple the amount of lithium than is currently being produced for the global vehicle market.
The shortage for lithium is causing water shortages, a scramble for land and environmental degradation as companies hurry to make the change before EV mandates come into effect.
According to The Guardian, new research showed that unless American dependence on vehicles sharply declines, ordering companies to change over to solely EVs by the year 2050 will prove to be a huge mistake for burgeoning leftist environmental and social initiatives.
Global demand for lithium is on the rise, and is predicted to increase 40 times by 2040 largely due to the increased demand for electric cars.
However, leftists are bent on signaling their “zero-emissions” virtues, no matter the human cost—or the hit on their social initiatives.
Protests and lawsuits against the surge in mining are already cropping up, particularly in the U.S., Chile, Serbia and Tibet.
“Preserving the status quo might seem like the politically easier option, but it’s not the fastest way to get people out of cars or the fairest way to decarbonize,” said Thea Riofrancos, associate professor of political science at Providence College and lead author of the report.
Never ready to let a crisis go to waste, leftist are using the environmental threat as a way to force people out of their cars and into using public transportation.
“We can either electrify the status quo to reach zero emissions, or the energy transition can be used as an opportunity to rethink our cities and the transportation sector so that it’s more environmentally and socially just, both in the US and globally.”
Litium mining will have a significant impact on public health and the supply chain at all levels for several decades.
According to the report, Americans will have to rely heavily on increased public transportation and denser cities for increased walkability in order to hit the country’s carbon neutral goal.
States mandating EVs are already coming up against barrages of problems—California, for example, ran into issues with their antiquated power grid not being able to sustain necessary power for charging everyone’s cars.
Vehicle manufacturers are also anticipating problems. Projections are falling far short of anticipated needs for the upcoming demand.
