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Lithium Mining And Andes Ecosystems | Earth Wise

October 28, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

A remote region in the high Andes straddling the borders between Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile has become known as the Lithium Triangle. The area has become the focus of a global rush for lithium to make batteries for electric cars. The global demand for lithium is expected to quadruple by 2030 to 2.6 million tons a year.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, more than half of the world’s lithium reserves are dissolved in ancient underground water within the Lithium Triangle. The cheapest way to extract the lithium is to pump the underground water to the surface and evaporate it in the sun to concentrate the lithium carbonate contained in it.

Every ton of lithium carbonate extracted using this cheap, low-tech method dissipates into the air about half a million gallons of water that is vital to the arid high Andes. The process lowers water tables and has the potential to dry up lakes, wetlands, springs, and rivers. Hydrologists and conservationists say the lithium rush in Argentina is likely to turn the region’s delicate ecosystems to deserts.

The global drive for green vehicles to fight climate change has the potential to be an ecological disaster in this remote region of South America and for the indigenous people who live there.

The environmental impacts are not an inevitable price for the transition to electric vehicles. First of all, there are alternatives to lithium. Both zinc and nickel are potential substitutes in rechargeable batteries. But, there are also ways of obtaining lithium that are less destructive than evaporating the metal from saline ecosystems. It is up to battery manufacturers, automakers, and financiers to start demanding lithium from sources that are less environmentally destructive.

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Why the Rush to Mine Lithium Could Dry Up the High Andes

Photo, posted September 25, 2015, courtesy of Nuno Luciano via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Disappearing Mountaintop Glacier Ice | Earth Wise

August 30, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

A newly released study has found that mountaintop glacier ice in the tropics of all four hemispheres has diminished dramatically over the past 50 years. Among the findings of the study, published in the journal Global and Planetary Change, are that a glacier near Puncak Jaya, in Papua New Guinea, lost about 93% of its ice between 1980 and 2018. Between 1986 and 2019, the area covered by glaciers on top of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa decreased by nearly 75%.

The study combined NASA satellite imagery with data from ice cores drilled during field expeditions on tropical glaciers around the world. The combination of measurements demonstrated that climate change is causing these glaciers to disappear and that the ice loss has accelerated in recent years.

The study looked at glacier ice in Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the Andes in Peru and Bolivia, the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas, and ice fields in Papua, New Guinea. Collecting ice cores from these places provides information on the climate in these regions over the centuries and millennia. As snow falls on a glacier each year, it is buried and compressed to form layers that preserve the chemistry of snow, pollutants from the atmosphere, and biological material such as plants and pollen.

Glaciers in the tropics respond more quickly to climate change because they exist in the warmest areas of the world and survive only at very high altitudes. For many of these tropical glaciers, it is too late to prevent their demise. It is not too late to attempt the slow down the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that is causing the planet to warm, but we don’t have unlimited time to act.

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Mountaintop glacier ice disappearing in tropics around the world

Photo, posted February 12, 2009, courtesy of Christoph Strassler via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Disappearing Rainforests | Earth Wise

July 2, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Forest loss is a major contributor to climate change, and it is continuing at a rapid pace. The tropics lost about 30 million acres of tree cover in 2019, a third of which was within humid tropical primary forests, which are especially important for biodiversity and carbon storage. To put that loss in a human-scale perspective, it is the equivalent of losing a football field of primary forest every six seconds for the entire year.

The losses last year were 2.8% higher than in the previous year, and these losses have continued over the past 20 years despite worldwide efforts to halt deforestation.

Brazil single-handedly accounted for over a third of all global loss of humid tropical primary forests. Bolivia experienced record-breaking tree cover loss due to fires. The losses in its forests were 80% greater than in any previous year. The fires were often started by people who were trying to clear land for agriculture but had the fires go out of control. Several countries in Africa’s Congo Basin also experienced sustained or worsening forest loss.

Indonesia, often the focus of the world’s attention for its deforestation activities, actually saw a 5% reduction in primary forest loss in 2019. It was the third year in a row for lower losses. The now-permanent moratorium on clearing forests for oil palm plantations and logging seems to be working.

Going forward, the coronavirus pandemic poses additional threats to the world’s forests in the near future. There may be a tendency to sacrifice forests in pursuit of economic recovery, which will only lead to future complications for the health and livelihoods of millions of people around the world.

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We Lost a Football Pitch of Primary Rainforest Every 6 Seconds in 2019

Photo, posted February 7, 2011, courtesy of Chad Skeers via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Bolivia’s Disappearing Lake

February 25, 2016 By WAMC WEB

Bolivia’s second largest lake has nearly disappeared. Lake Poopó, a saltwater lake located in a shallow depression in the Altiplano Mountains, used to cover an area about the size of Los Angeles. While it’s not the first time the lake has dried out, scientists believe its recovery hangs in the balance due to the combined stress of drought, climate change, and water diversion.