In response to Cindy Jayne’s “Q&A about EVs” from Nov. 30. Your analysis (and that of the culture at large) that electric vehicles and lithium batteries are somehow “green” is deeply flawed, misleading, irresponsible, short-sighted, lazy, and incomplete. 

You bring up the concept of a life cycle assessment and then speak only to the emission “off-sets” without actually addressing the broader life-cycle inputs and impacts. What about the vast habitat destruction, disturbance, and pollution of pit mining for metals? Or the fact that the process of mining lithium relies on byproducts from the tar sands industry itself, as well as vast networks of machinery burning fossil fuels to operate the mine, transport the materials, manufacture the cars, etc. etc. etc.? 

Anyone who dares claim that your electric vehicles are clean and green needs to get their butt down to Thacker Pass in Orovada, Nevada before and after they dig a pit mine that will span the length of North Beach to Boat Haven (not including the tailing stacks, the “waste rock” area, the growth media/stripped topsoil stockpiles, etc.). Make sure you go in time to see the sage grouse dance for the last time, too, because they’re about to be bombarded with noise pollution that will drive them from their ancestral lek and push them closer to extinction. Too bad, though, you already missed the unceremonious archaeological dig unearthing Indigenous bones from their resting place (where they were massacred) to make way for Mordor. 

We can do better than patting ourselves on the back for incremental but ultimately inconsequential changes, while turning a blind eye to the social and ecological disaster that the “green energy revolution” is. We need to face these issues honestly and not gloss over them because the problem is more complex than we wish it was.

Alex Eisenberg
PORT TOWNSEND