Poisoning and destroying Amazon rainforest habitats?

Check.

Laying waste to pristine Greenland tracts?

Check.

A 26 February Bloomberg article reported that Ford 150 EVs marketed to high-end U.S. consumers are creating environmental devastation and widespread sickness and negative impacts for communities in the Brazilian rainforest.

According to the investigation, much of the aluminum used to make the trucks has its original source deep within the Brazilian Amazon.

According to a class-action complaint filed on behalf of 11,000 residents of the Hydro Alunorte refinery’s adjacent neighborhoods, Norsk Hydro ASA of Norway has been polluting the area’s waterways and streams. 

Hazardous mud, a byproduct of turning mined bauxite into alumina, used for aluminum, along with other toxic metals, is being spewed from the facility, allegedly causing health issues including cancer, hair loss, neurological malfunction, birth deformities, and a rise in mortality.

While gas and diesel-powered vehicles contain aluminum, use of the metal is more substantial and prevalent in EVs, because these cars are much more reliant on employing lightweight materials, to offset the heavy weight of onboard batteries.

Hidden Emissions, Slave Labor, Rare Earth Mining, Rising Costs – The Case Against EVs Only Growing

EVs are often portrayed as a wonder technology.

Facts paint a different picture.

EVs are not an ideal use case for alternative energy, compared to, say, supplementing home energy power, or providing auxiliary power for appliances in an RV.

Electric vehicles employ large arrays of batteries, whose weight and size must be transported as part of the system, siphoning a large portion of energy consumption.

The battery systems require considerable resources in their construction and production, and have a useful life of as little as 8 to 10 years.

Many conventional cars are used for 20 years or more.

EV batteries also markedly degrade in sustained cold weather conditions that prevail in much of the northern U.S. and Canada.

An excellent recent write-up in Issues & Insights has documented multiple problems of EVs that are seldom given proper consideration by mainstream media coverage.

Some of those problems include:

● Anderson Economic Group found that given current energy prices, it’s more affordable to operate a mid-priced gas-powered car than an equivalent EV, especially when you take into account the additional time and bother required to recharge an EV.

● According to a University of Michigan study, EVs can produce, by power plant proxy, more CO2 than regular cars.

● Battery components like lithium, cobalt, and other rare earth minerals are frequently mined and produced using child labor from nations that have a history of egregious human rights violations, like China, the Congo, Indonesia, and Iran. 

Issues & Insights writer Ronald Stein compiled some startling info regarding EV batteries:

“you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. All told, you dig up 500,000 pounds of the earth’s crust for just one battery.” 

The recent Issues & Insights article can be read here.

The Trends Journal has reported on the deceptive claims and financially conflicted backgrounds of green energy and EV advocates in a series of articles.

Some touchstones include:

● “2023: RAMPING UP THE DE-HUMAN MOVEMENT” (10 Jan 2023)

● “COP27: 30 YEARS OF DUBIOUS CLIMATE ‘SUCCESS’” (8 Nov 2022)

● “THE ELITE BLUEPRINT FOR THE FUTURE” (27 Sep 2022)

● “GREEN ENERGY TYCOONS READY TO LAY WASTE TO GREENLAND” (16 Aug 2022)

● “GREEN ENERGY TYCOONS UPDATE: INVESTIGATING THE ‘CLIMATE CARTEL’” (19 Jul 2022)