You are an environmentalist. You just might not know it.
But if you’re reading this on a laptop, a tablet, or another mobile device, welcome to the environmental cause. You especially rely on one of nature’s more limited resources. You may not realize it, but you became partly responsible for many strategic political and military actions taken around the world the moment you turned this device on.
So here’s why you’re playing this role, and why you should be concerned…
How Long will Our Natural Resources Last? This chart of known sources of metal and earth minerals is quite sobering.
Rare earth elements are some of the most important strategic natural resources in the world. They are essential to many consumer electronics, for semi-conductors in communications and they are the backbone of high-tech defense weapons systems.
China has the largest deposit of rare element minerals in the world - 90% of the global supply.
And China has, at times, closed-off trade of these technology-important materials. North Korea also has quite an abundance.
Coincidentally, Afghanistan also has one of the largest deposits of rare earth minerals in the world.
While there are often many factors to consider, the next time you watch the news and wonder what moves are being made, where, and why, you also might want to consider some of the more complicated strategic and longterm issues at play. What we see may not always be all there is.
The natural resources we rely on are often just as contested as the ideologies we fight over. But – as we all know with marketing – there are easier ways to sell things when we adjust the packaging.
(Even consider for a moment…storage and the move to leasing of what was once owned the “cloud”…is it all just a convenience for consumers? Well, not only is it a way to centralize data (bringing up another issue altogether), but low-cost electronics are a drain on these materials as well, so reducing the hardware is one step to reducing the impact).
Think you’re not an environmentalist? Think again.
Humans need nature.Not the other way around.
We live in an interconnected, highly complex world where many difficult trade-offs must be made. Yet most people have a shallow understanding of how reliant they are on nature, and the role they play in global economic, health and security issues.
If we live in this world, and enjoy the lifestyle that our modern conveniences supply, it’s time we all start paying more attention.
