Mickey Goes Electric; Nickel Riots Rock New Caledonia; Bikes Beat Cars in Paris
Issue #4 of the newsletter about how the raw materials we need for renewable energy and digital technology are hurting people and the planet—and how we can do better.
Mickey Goes Electric
The Happiest Place on Earth is becoming a slightly more sustainable place. Disneyland’s venerable Autopia ride will swap its gas-powered miniature cars for electric ones in the coming years, reports Sammy Roth in the Los Angeles Times. It’s part of the park’s declared push to get to zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Autopia is certainly due for an update: it opened nearly 70 (!) years ago, modeled on the then-exciting new concept of freeways. I guess it’s still pretty realistic though. Disneyland’s own website tags it as a “loud, slow ride”—just like driving the I-5 in southern California!
Meanwhile, Bloomberg has an encouraging analysis about how many real-world countries are similarly headed for Tomorrowland. The news service’s number crunchers believe that when sales of electric vehicles hit five per cent of all new car sales in a given country, it represents a tipping point, a sign that the shift in consumer preferences is about to surge from trickle to flood. In 2022, only 19 countries had reached the five per cent milestone; just two years later, that total has climbed to 31 countries. Norway is way out in front; nearly 80 percent of all new cars sold there are electric. Most western European countries are also on the list, but so are several developing countries, including Thailand, Turkey, and of course China, where the figure is a hefty 24 percent. The US and Canada are way behind, clocking 9 percent and 8 percent, respectively. Hey, at least we made the cut!
Switching to electric vehicles is crucial for combatting climate change, but if you’re reading this newsletter you already know that those vehicles also incur brutal costs to people and the planet. If you’re looking to buy the least-damaging electric car you can, check out this report from the helpful folks at Lead the Charge, a coalition of environmental groups, evaluating “18 of the world's leading automakers on their efforts to eliminate emissions, environmental harms, and human rights violations from their supply chains.” No one is innocent, but some are more guilty than others.
Nickel Riots Rock New Caledonia
Violent clashes erupted in New Caledonia this week, with protesters burning tires to block roads and throwing stones at police, who fought back with armored vehicles and tear gas. It was the latest skirmish in the long-running battle over control of the tiny French territory’s huge nickel industry.
New Caledonia has barely a quarter million inhabitants, but its nickel endowment is colossal. It may hold as much as one-quarter of the world’s nickel, a key ingredient in batteries for electric cars and digital devices—and the linchpin of the territory’s economy. Almost since French colonists began mining the metal in 1864, New Caledonia has been wracked by periodic spasms of violence as the indigenous Kanak people battled with settlers and other newcomers over the division of the metal booty. Unrest over nickel brought down the local government in 2021.
In recent years, however, New Caledonia’s nickel industry has been losing ground to cheaper suppliers in Indonesia and China. As a result, one of New Caledonia’s main nickel plants has been idled, and two others are facing crippling debt. Hundreds of jobs have already been lost and thousands more are at risk. France has offered a 200 million Euro rescue package—but only if New Caledonia overhauls its nickel industry to lower costs. The protests this week were aimed at scuttling that proposed deal, reports Patrick Decloitre of RNZ. The issue is intertwined with the ongoing struggle between a separatist movement seeking full independence and loyalists who want to remain part of France. Neither question—whether New Caledonia should be independent and how it should run its troubled nickel industry—seems likely to be settled any time soon.
How We Can Do Better: In Paris, Bikes (Sometimes) Outnumber Cars
The City of Light has been pushing to become the City of Bikes for several years now, and it seems to be working. A new study finds that more Parisians are riding velos than driving cars, at least for journeys from the outskirts into the city center, according to transportation journalist Carlton Reid in Forbes. That’s just the latest data point showing the growing popularity of bikes. Here’s another: The number of bikes in Paris streets doubled between October 2022 and October 2023, according to Le Monde.
Much of the credit goes to Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, who has championed a range of measures to make it harder to drive a car and easier to get around by other means. She has slashed the number of parking spaces, closed some major roads to autos, restricted access for SUVs, and perhaps most importantly, installed more than 800 miles of bike lanes. “We have committed ourselves to a major and radical shift: the end of the car-centric model,” Hidalgo declared recently. Fewer cars and more bikes mean cleaner air, a more livable city—and much less need to dig up critical metals.
You Should Really Read This
The future may be grim, but it sure sounds exciting in this dystopian YA novel. In a world where climate change has wreaked havoc and fossil fuels have run out, teenaged Nailer and his tribe scrape out a living by salvaging metal from the derelict oil tankers littering the Louisiana coast. Lots of the book is pulp-fiction silliness, which may be a plus or a minus depending on your tastes. Nailer’s life is in danger within the first few pages, and pretty much every other chapter thereafter, and it is no spoiler to tell you that he implausibly survives again and again. It’s a fun read, but what really grabbed me was the depiction of the scrapping trade—the dangerous toil of finding and extracting copper and other metals from abandoned machinery. I suspect author Paolo Bacigalupi did his homework, because the sights, sounds, smells, and suffering he evokes all felt very true to what I’ve seen among metal scrappers in Canada and Nigeria. There are two more books in the series. Anybody read them? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Also, let me know if you have suggestions for other books, movies, shows or whatever that I should check out!
Pic of the Week
