A “Green Energy” Group Is Quietly Destroying The Amazon Rainforest

We hear the words almost every day: Green, sustainable.

But should we be using these words when we are talking about wind and solar energy and electric cars?

Those who claim to be in the environmental movement will talk about saving the Amazon from logging.

But what about mining?

To create wind and solar energy platforms and electric vehicles we need certain minerals and metals.

To get some of what is needed - the Amazon is being mined.

The photo above is one such mine, deep in the Amazon.

This means cutting many archers of trees and ripping huge holes into the ground.

That's just to get to the minerals and metals need.

What is mined needs to be shipped, which means tearing roads into the jungle.

Then many more archers of trees are torn down to build the facilities to extract and refine.

This next process creates a toxic mess that is poisoning villages, towns, and the surrounding rainforest.

You can see the process in the video, below.

Aluminum used in the new all-electric model of America’s best-selling pickup truck, the Ford F-150, can be traced from Ford Motor Co.’s historic Rouge assembly complex in Dearborn, Michigan, back to a parts manufacturer in Pennsylvania, a smelter in Canada, and ultimately the rainforests of Brazil.

There, in the heart of the Amazon, rust-colored bauxite is being clawed from a mine whose owners have long faced allegations of pollution and land appropriation. And, near where the Amazon River empties into the Atlantic, a refinery that processes the ore stands accused of sickening thousands of people.

In this episode of Bloomberg Investigates, we visit the communities directly affected and meet the people who are fighting back against the companies they hold responsible. (Bloomberg News).

This is not the only place on the planet where extracting what is needed for "green and sustainable" is tearing apart the land, as well as the people.

This next video shows the cost in Africa. 

Unreported World investigates the dirty business of cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The mineral is fuelling the planet’s green revolution, but at what cost? Around seventy percent of the world's cobalt is mined in the Central African country, mostly from the southern Katanga area, thought to be one of the ten most polluted places on earth.

Reporter Jamal Osman travels to Kolwezi, a city dependent on supplying Cobalt, a critical component for electric cars and rechargeable batteries.

Residents are employed by large multinational companies, or in smaller, and more dangerous artisanal mines.

We meet the men who clamber down dark weaving airless tunnels to extract cobalt for as little as $150 per month.

But is the paycheck worth the health risks that doctors have uncovered? (Unreported World).

What's happening in China and other parts of the world is not better.