Daniel Feldman Chapter 3 Post

Daniel feldman
Greadel T., Schmitz O., (2010). The Consumption Conundrum: Driving Consumption Abroad. Yale Environment 360. Available at: http://e360.yale.edu/features/the_consumption_conundrum_driving_the_destruction_abroad 


1. I knew that more rare earth metals were being used in advancing electronic technology. Likewise, I knew that most rare earth metals were mined outside of the United States.

2. I had thought that the main reason that technology companies imported foreign rare materials was simply that they were not domestically available. I was unaware that the United States had large rare earth metal resources, such as the Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, and was choosing not to exploit them because of the potential environmental impact in those areas. Instead, the US leverages this reserve, and pushes mining overseas, where the environmental impacts do not directly and immediately harm the US. However, those developing countries in which the mining occurs often have more lax environmental regulations, and, thus, the mining would release more toxins and have greater absolute environmental impact.

3. Though technology may be labeled green or maybe more efficient, it is often not (chapter 3). More advanced batteries and faster computing power, which comprises many trends in “green” tech, relies on rare earth materials. As this article has discussed, these rare earth metals that go into the new, innovative, green technology are causing huge environmental impact, largely unregulated, in the developing countries in which they are mined. 

4. The conundrum of rare earth metals is where to get them from. If we get them overseas, we do not directly see the environmental impact on our own land and shoreline. However, unregulated mining in these foreign countries leads to a greater global environmental impact. To minimize global impact, we may have to increase local impact. The conundrum is to, in the case of pebble mine, harm the fragile, rare ecosystem of salmon in Bristol Bay in order to mine rare earth materials in a more regulated, less pollutant way. That is, of course, if we want to keep having faster and more extravagant electronic devices.