With Texas Sen. Ted Cruz announcing his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination this week, political watchers are waiting with bated breath for the next shoe to drop—that is, the next candidate to announce his run. And while no announcements seem to be immediately on the horizon, other than possibly that of non-serious candidate Donald Trump who said last week he's forming an exploratory committee, it might be time to look at where the other candidates stand on climate change and other environmental issues.
Guessing who might be a frontrunner a year from now—or even a month from now—in such a crowded field is a thankless game, especially with no formal announcements. But former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is collecting money hand over fist, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Brown attracted some favorable attention at a recent summit in the key primary state of Iowa, and both former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and ex-Texas Gov. Rick Perry have made it obvious they'd be open to a second run (both were candidates in 2012).
There's also New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, once considered an easy frontrunner but now damaged by home-state scandals. There's Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and for those hungry for a new name to specular about, Ohio Gov. John Kasich who's indicated his openness to a run by traveling to another critical primary state, New Hampshire, when he should be back home doing something about his state's lagging economy.
Assessing the climate positions of so many candidates isn't as hard as you'd think—virtually all are climate deniers, although many haven't made it a major cornerstone of their public utterances. And there's good reason: with the fossil fuel multibillionaire Koch Brothers having vowed to spend close to a billion dollars putting a Republican in the White House in 2016, all the candidates are eying that cash covetously. And the attached string is having positions that are unwaveringly anti-environmental and pro unlimited fossil fuel development.
So we saw Monday when Cruz announced that he touted oil and gas development as a cornerstone of his campaign. But he's not the only one.
Bush said in an interview in 2011, "It is not unanimous among scientists that [climate change] is disproportionately manmade. What I get a little tired of on the left is this idea that somehow science has decided all this so you can’t have a view."
Yet one of his backers is pushing him to separate himself from the deniers, according to the Wall Street Journal. Andrew Sabin, who owns a precious-metals refining business, told the paper, "I want him to be the next Teddy Roosevelt. We want to show that conservation is conservative and get Republicans back to their environmental roots without hurting jobs."
In response, a Bush spokesperson said, "He believes the climate is changing but research is less conclusive on the extent to which humans contribute,” Ms. Campbell said. “He does not believe alarmist, far-left environmental policies are the answer.”
Walker has been getting heat in the last few days as it's come out during an ongoing probe of his private emails that he received $1.5 million in "dark" money from billionaire John Menard Jr. One of Menard's top priorities was reining in enforcement by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources such as the $1.7 million in fines against both Menard and his company for violating state environmental laws, and the Walker administration has obliged.
And Walker revealed his fealty to the Koch brothers when he was punked back in 2011 by activist journalist Ian Murphy, who called him and pretended to be David Koch. In the call, Walker spilled his guts about his contempt for the public workers staging massive protests at the state capitol in response to Walker's drive to eliminate bargaining rights. "Well, I’ll tell you what, Scott, once you crush these bastards, I’ll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time," "Koch" tells Walker, who responds, "That would be outstanding. Thanks for all the support in helping us to move the cause forward."
Then there's Trump, whom no one takes seriously as a candidate except himself. He's busy giving the birther treatment to Cruz, claiming his having been born in Canada—to a U.S. Citizen mother—might prohibit him from running for President. (It doesn't).
Donald Trump questions if Ted Cruz can run for President http://t.co/DGeq2WqvSV via @dailykos/ CRUZ IS NOT A U.S. CITIZEN & CAN NOT RUN!!!!
— Michael (@Mikew1767) March 25, 2015
His climate positions are no more reality-based. Last winter, he posted a string of tweets saying things like, "Any and all weather events are used by the GLOBAL WARMING HOAXSTERS to justify higher taxes to save our planet! They don't believe it $$$$!" and "NBC News just called it the great freeze—coldest weather in years. Is our country still spending money on the GLOBAL WARMING HOAX?"
This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps,and our GW scientists are stuck in ice — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2014
Apparently, the tome The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future, written by Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, now chairman of the Senate Environment Committee, is required reading for GOP presidential candidates.
There's one long-shot hopeful who appears to be trying to position himself as the voice of sanity in the field, hoping apparently that the hardcore GOP base will do a 180 and be looking for that. Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, "I think there will be a political problem for the Republican Party going into 2016 if we don’t define what we are for the environment. I don’t know what the environmental policy of the Republican Party is."
It seems like some of his fellow party members have made it pretty clear.
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Though made in large part of plastic, glass, ceramics, gold and copper, they also contain critical resources. The gallium used for LEDs and the camera flash, the tantalum in capacitors and indium that powers the display were all pulled from the ground — at a price for nature and people.
"Mining raw materials is always problematic, both with regard to human rights and ecology," said Melanie Müller, raw materials expert of the German think tank SWP. "Their production process is pretty toxic."
The gallium and indium in many phones comes from China or South Korea, the tantalum from the Democratic Republic of Congo or Rwanda. All in, such materials comprise less than ten grams of a phone's weight. But these grams finance an international mining industry that causes radioactive earth dumps, poisoned groundwater and Indigenous population displacement.
Environmental Damage: 'Nature Has Been Overexploited'
The problem is that modern technologies don't work without what are known as critical raw materials. Collectively, solar panels, drones, 3D printers and smartphone contain as many as 30 of these different elements sourced from around the globe. A prime example is lithium from Chile, which is essential in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles.
"No one, not even within the industry, would deny that mining lithium causes enormous environmental damage," Müller explained, in reference to the artificial lakes companies create when flushing the metal out of underground brine reservoirs. "The process uses vast amounts of water, so you end up with these huge flooded areas where the lithium settles."
This means of extraction results in the destruction and contamination of the natural water system. Unique plants and animals lose access to groundwater and watering holes. There have also been reports of freshwater becoming salinated due to extensive acidic waste water during lithium mining.
But lithium is not the only raw material that causes damage. Securing just one ton of rare earth elements produces 2,000 tons of toxic waste, and has devastated large regions of China, said Günther Hilpert, head of the Asia Research Division of the German think tank SWP.
He says companies there have adopted a process of spraying acid over the mining areas in order to separate the rare earths from other ores, and that mined areas are often abandoned after excavation.
"They are no longer viable for agricultural use," Hilpert said. "Nature has been overexploited."
China is not the only country with low environmental mining standards and poor resource governance. In Madagascar, for example, a thriving illegal gem and metal mining sector has been linked to rainforest depletion and destruction of natural lemur habitats.
States like Madagascar, Rwanda and the DRC score poorly on the Environmental Performance Index that ranks 180 countries for their effort on factors including conservation, air quality, waste management and emissions. Environmentalists are therefore particularly concerned that these countries are mining highly toxic materials like beryllium, tantalum and cobalt.
But it is not only nature that suffers from the extraction of high-demand critical raw materials.
"It is a dirty, toxic, partly radioactive industry," Hilpert said. "China, for example, has never really cared about human rights when it comes to achieving production targets."
Dirty, Toxic, Radioactive: Working in the Mining Sector
One of the most extreme examples is Baotou, a Chinese city in Inner Mongolia, where rare earth mining poisoned surrounding farms and nearby villages, causing thousands of people to leave the area.
In 2012, The Guardian described a toxic lake created in conjunction with rare earth mining as "a murky expanse of water, in which no fish or algae can survive. The shore is coated with a black crust, so thick you can walk on it. Into this huge, 10 sq km tailings pond nearby factories discharge water loaded with chemicals used to process the 17 most sought after minerals in the world."
Local residents reported health issues including aching legs, diabetes, osteoporosis and chest problems, The Guardian wrote.
South Africa has also been held up for turning a blind eye to the health impacts of mining.
"The platinum sector in South Africa has been criticized for performing very poorly on human rights — even within the raw materials sector," Müller said.
In 2012, security forces killed 34 miners who had been protesting poor working conditions and low wages at a mine owned by the British company Lonmin. What became known as the "Marikana massacre" triggered several spontaneous strikes across the country's mining sector.
Müller says miners can still face exposure to acid drainage — a frequent byproduct of platinum mining — that can cause chemical burns and severe lung damage. Though this can be prevented by a careful waste system.
Some progress was made in 2016 when the South African government announced plans to make mining companies pay $800 million (€679 million) for recycling acid mine water. But they didn't all comply. In 2020, activists sued Australian-owned mining company Mintails and the government to cover the cost of environmental cleanup.
Another massive issue around mining is water consumption. Since the extraction of critical raw materials is very water intensive, drought prone countries such as South Africa, have witnessed an increase in conflicts over supply.
For years, industry, government and the South African public debated – without a clear agreement – whether companies should get privileged access to water and how much the population may suffer from shortages.
Mining in Brazil: Replacing Nature, People, Land Rights
Beyond the direct health and environmental impact of mining toxic substances, quarrying critical raw materials destroys livelihoods, as developments in Brazil demonstrate.
"Brazil is the major worldwide niobium producer and reserves in [the state of] Minas Gerais would last more than 200 years [at the current rate of demand]," said Juliana Siqueira-Gay, environmental engineer and Ph.D. student at the University of São Paulo.
While the overall number of niobium mining requests is stagnating, the share of claims for Indigenous land has skyrocketed from 3 to 36 percent within one year. If granted, 23 percent of the Amazon forest and the homeland of 222 Indigenous groups could fall victim to deforestation in the name of mining, a study by Siqueira-Gay finds.
In early 2020, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro signed a bill which would allow corporations to develop areas populated by Indigenous communities in the future. The law has not yet entered into force, but "this policy could have long-lasting negative effects on Brazil's socio-biodiversity," said Siqueira-Gay.
One example are the niobium reserves in Seis Lagos, in Brazil's northeast, which could be quarried to build electrolytic capacitors for smartphones.
"They overlap the Balaio Indigenous land and it would cause major impacts in Indigenous communities by clearing forests responsible for providing food, raw materials and regulating the local climate," Siqueira-Gay explained.
She says scientific good practice guidelines offer a blueprint for sustainable mining that adheres to human rights and protects forests. Quarries in South America — and especially Brazil — funded by multilaterial banks like the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group have to follow these guidelines, Siqueira-Gay said.
They force companies to develop sustainable water supply, minimize acid exposure and re-vegetate mined surfaces. "First, negative impacts must be avoided, then minimized and at last compensated — not the other way around."
Reposted with permission from DW.