Hurricane Helene has arrived just in time to clear out the property owners local to the mining interests in Western North Carolina. Piedmont Lithium was heavily opposed in Gaston County by local residents and commissioners. But now it appears the opposition has been eliminated.
Behind each piece of green technology is extraction. A recent International Energy Agency report estimates that reaching “net zero” by 2050 would require six times the amount of minerals used today.
The carbon credit reforestation project involves buying up huge swaths of pastureland in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna region and turning them into eucalyptus plantations, which are exacerbating drought conditions.
Many of the projects involve land deals to set up giant eucalyptus, acacia or bamboo plantations. Typically, these are pasture lands or savannahs that were used until now by local communities for grazing livestock or growing food.
“This incident puts an exclamation point on concerns communities across the country have been raising for years about the dangers the CCS industry poses to public safety and drinking water,” said one climate group.
