NIMBYs want benefits of mining, but elsewhere

Josie Vidal of Straterra writes:

If you ride a bike or drive an electric vehicle, thank you. If you eat, cook, or keep food in the fridge, thank you.

If you use a mobile phone, laptop, computer, access medical services, play the guitar, rely on solar panels to heat your home, thank you. Like me, you all support mining, because if you look at how your stuff is made, the components come from the periodic table and they were mined.

If it wasn’t grown, it was mined and almost everything you use every day, including the kitchen sink (partially made from Ni, or Nickel, 28 on the periodic table), is at your fingertips thanks to mining.

Most people have no idea how much of what they use comes from mined products.

Boiling it down, it appears those against are saying they don’t want mining in New Zealand but are happy to use all the goods that are made from mining if production is out of sight and out of mind. Too bad that potentially it was children who mined that cobalt (Co, 27 on the periodic table) that keeps your battery-powered devices running, including the electric vehicle. The children that survive the high-risk mining, with their bare hands, get to sell a bag of rock for 0.75 cents or one dollar. I think they call that NIMBYism – not in my backyard.

The less mining we do in New Zealand, the more mining gets done in other countries, often using child labour.

Electric car sales around the world continue to break records, and a recent International Energy Agency report highlights this brings with it an increase in the demand for raw materials. It suggests, “Governments must leverage private investment in sustainable mining and ensure clear and rapid permitting procedures to avoid potential supply bottlenecks”.

There are so many opportunities to contribute to a better future, why wouldn’t we seize them?

If the future is electric cars (and it is), then we need a lot more mining, not less mining.