What I was saying is that it is not a binary choice between pushing damaging projects here or accepting damaging projects elsewhere, but instead wherever possible we should be doing what we can to mitigate and limit the environmental and social impacts of extraction, insofar as there are things we need to extract.
What I was saying is that it is not a binary choice between pushing damaging projects here or accepting damaging projects elsewhere, but instead wherever possible we should be doing what we can to mitigate and limit the environmental and social impacts of extraction, insofar as there are things we need to extract.
I mean, yes but there are always tradeoffs and time is a massive factor. If doing everything we can to mitigate local environmental damage means a process that delays the mining of minerals needed for mass-electrification and slows it down, then we’ll end up doing more overall environmental damage as we continue to burn fossil fuels.
Sure. And I’d be much more inclined to take this view if the same provincial and federal governments pushing for development in the ring of fire weren’t also so loudly gung ho on pushing through new and expanded fossil fuel infrastructure, spending billions on nuclear facilities that will take a decade-plus to build, and massive energy-intensive AI compute infrastructure that also demands a huge amount of those same critical minerals.
I didn’t say anything about poor labour practices, but we do have to accept some environmental degradation.
There is literally no practical way to keep this many people alive without some environmental degradation.
OK so I was right that you did miss my point.
What I was saying is that it is not a binary choice between pushing damaging projects here or accepting damaging projects elsewhere, but instead wherever possible we should be doing what we can to mitigate and limit the environmental and social impacts of extraction, insofar as there are things we need to extract.
I see no reason why we can’t have high standards.
I mean, yes but there are always tradeoffs and time is a massive factor. If doing everything we can to mitigate local environmental damage means a process that delays the mining of minerals needed for mass-electrification and slows it down, then we’ll end up doing more overall environmental damage as we continue to burn fossil fuels.
Sure. And I’d be much more inclined to take this view if the same provincial and federal governments pushing for development in the ring of fire weren’t also so loudly gung ho on pushing through new and expanded fossil fuel infrastructure, spending billions on nuclear facilities that will take a decade-plus to build, and massive energy-intensive AI compute infrastructure that also demands a huge amount of those same critical minerals.