The electric car, which is presented to us in France as an essential ecological advance, depends entirely on the massive extraction of minerals for the manufacture of its batteries, with particularly destructive effects where this takes place. What characterizes this massive destruction of natural environments is that it takes place far away, in a neo-colonial logic that is typical of globalized capitalism. In order to enable the development of this market, Western populations must be kept in the dark about the rather catastrophic consequences for the “environment” of these extractions, which completely contradict the ecological pretext attributed to them.
Thus, it is in Indonesia, on the island of Halmahera, that the world’s largest nickel mine is located. In just a few years, 45,000 hectares of primary forest have been destroyed to allow the expansion of this mine, which is operated by the Weda Bay Nickel (WBN) conglomerate, in which Chinese, German and French interests (the ERAMET mining group) are involved.
One of the last indigenous tribes to inhabit this forest, the Hongana Manyawa, is threatened with extinction in the short term as it is deprived of its vital resources.
This is just one example among many of the blindness that keeps us in a so-called ecological transition, which is in fact nothing more than the continuation of the same system in which the megamachine born of capitalism endlessly prolongs its destruction, threatening the very future of the planet and, by extension, our own. There is no outcome other than a tragic one if this system continues. Its supposed reforms and changes of direction are nothing more than the expression of new means implemented to ensure this continuity, whatever the cost, as they say. The cost will be paid, among others, by the human race as a whole, and very dearly, if it does not quickly realize that the time for compromise is over and that this deadly system must be brought to an end. Continuing to delude ourselves with fictitious and transitional solutions is becoming completely inexcusable, and those who seek to promote them are making themselves direct accomplices of this megamachine. They should know that more and more of us are realizing this.