There's no such thing as a free lunch

Recently I've been considering, as I'm sure a lot of people are, getting an electric car.  Actually for me, it's an academic mental exercise, because I wouldn't be able to charge it at home. However it's something I like to think about for future reference in case I ever move and have the luxury of my own off-road parking.

I thought it was a no-brainer – if I had the money to buy one, and the room to charge it, why wouldn't I get one ?  I don't drive all that much, rarely do long journeys and go by train when I do. 

I care passionately about what we're doing to the planet, and electric cars are good for that, right ?  Actually, maybe not right at all.  There's a hidden cost which we here in this country,  and in the whole of Europe, don't see.  And that's lithium mining.

Having read up a lot on electric cars, I've seen the pictures taken in South America, China, and Africa of the terrible environmental devastation which lithium mining is causing. In particular I remember the pictures of a lake in Africa, rich in lithium brine, where the 'before' photo shows thousands of flamingos, a wonderful sea of pinky-orange, and the 'after' photo shows a sterile, puddle empty of wildlife.

It's not just the environmental damage.  Lithium mining is dangerous and unhealthy work, and in Nigeria (and I dare say other places too) uses much child labour.

And as well as electric car batteries, apparently lithium is in my mobile phone and my laptop too. That was a shock to me.

I'm not a bad person.  I like to think I'm a good person.  I try to help people and animals.  I give money to what I consider are good causes. I do volunteering for various local charities. I love my sister and my cat.  I pick up litter in the street.

(Of course, the devastation caused by lithium mining isn't the only environmental cost of our high standards of living, I'm not saying for a moment it is.  It's just the one I'm considering here.)

So ever since I saw those pictures of that lake in Africa, and the villagers protesting in South America, and the huge bare areas in China looking like the moon, I've been considering this question :

Would I really be prepared to give up my laptop, mobile phone, and potential electric car, to save a flamingo in Africa, who I will never see ?  Or to prevent groundwater contamination for a Bolivian village, which I will never visit ?   Or to save a child working down a dirty and dangerous mine in Nigeria, where I will never go ?

And the completely honest answer is – No. I wouldn't.

So now I don't know whether I'm a good person, or not.