We are fast realizing the importance of shifting to low-carbon technologies to address climate change. But what we don’t so often consider is the enormous mineral inputs those technologies require, nor the impacts of that mining on the environment and on communities. That topic will the subject of Casey Bartrem’s Common Reading talk on Monday, September 13, at 4:30 pm via Zoom. Bartrem, the executive director of Terregraphics International Foundation, will include a focus on recent proposals for mining development in the Pacific Northwest that bring the trade-offs of low-carbon energy close to home, especially to the tribal lands where many of these minerals are located. This talk brings together our year-long consideration of inequalities with the pressing issue of climate change: what kind of honest assessment must be made about the environmental and social impacts of low-carbon technologies in order to attain a future that is both sustainable and equitable?
This talk can be accessed through Zoom at https://wsu.zoom.us/j/93296958136. For more detail on this talk, the Common Reading Program, and the upcoming calendar of events accompanying campus use of Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation, visit https://commonreading.wsu.edu/.
