November conference in the Black Hills to address the climate crisis and the future of lithium mining in the region
On Saturday and Sunday Nov. 4-5, there will be a conference titled Lithium Mining and the Climate Crisis in the Black Hills: The Green Energy Revolution Hits Home. The conference will work toward finding solutions to two problems that we face – the climate crisis, which has brought us increasingly catastrophic weather, and uncontrolled lithium mining (a Nevada mine is pictured above in a NASA-produced image posted on wikimedia commons) for electric vehicle batteries.
There are at least nine lithium operators at work in the Black Hills. State laws allow lithium to be mined without paying royalties and — on private land — without public comments or participation. Nationally, electric vehicles are billed as a solution for climate change, but resource extraction is a major contributor to carbon emissions worldwide. In the Black Hills, we are on the front lines for these issues. It’s beyond time to look for solutions.
In addition to presenters from our region, speakers at the conference will include experts on lithium issues:
Ellen Moore of Earthworks’ “Making Clean Energy Clean, Just, and Equitable” team. Moore has almost 20 years of experience doing human rights and environmental justice organizing;
Gary McKinney of Atsa Koodakuh wyh Nuwu (People of Red Mountain), an Indigenous-led grassroots movement formed to Protect the McDermitt Caldera and Western Shoshone territories from proposed Lithium mines, and
John Hadder, executive director of Great Basin Resource Watch, who has an academic background in physical chemistry and has worked since 1991 on public policy and environmental issues.
The conference is limited to 40 people. Applications to attend are due by 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 18. More information is available on the application form.
If you have additional questions, contact edbhcwa@gmail.com
Lilias Jarding lives in Rapid City, where she spends her time gardening, riding her Harley, and working on Rapid Creek Watershed Action (rapidcreekwatershed.org). She has a Ph.D. in Political Science with a focus on Environmental Policy.
