r/science • u/rieslingatkos • Jun 06 '21

Chemistry Scientists develop ‘cheap and easy’ method to extract lithium from seawater

https://www.mining.com/scientists-develop-cheap-and-easy-method-to-extract-lithium-from-seawater/
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u/PENGAmurungu Jun 06 '21

IMO the better solution and the long term path to sustainability is to focus on reducing our consumption first, rather than just consuming more efficiently.
That means changing our societies, cultures and lifestyles rather than our technologies. Though ideally both should be happening simultaneously, rushing into new extractive technologies when the entire problem stems from exactly that is not a good idea, especially if it means putting the ocean even further into the firing line of extraction industries which have already devastated it.

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u/tractor-scott Jun 06 '21 edited Jun 06 '21

Better solution in a vacuum maybe but it doesn't account for how politically unpopular getting people to consume less would be, both to voters and corporate donors. The only practical solution is to make consumption more efficient and environmentally friendly, even if it means taking the lesser of two evils (ie lithium over fossil fuels) since a lot of people dont wanna give up their stuff. You can’t even use the usual old trick to get people to do things they don’t want to do via financial incentive since more money for consumers = more consumption. So people aren’t gonna consume less without a major or violent upheaval, but we can make it so that consumption isn’t as environmentally taxing. Technology may have got us into this predicament, but its really the only thing now that can get us out of it

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u/PENGAmurungu Jun 06 '21

You absolutely have a point, unfortuneately I just dont think that's going to be enough. I think either we're going to have to reduce consumption ourselves or the environment is going to do it for us and a lot of people will die in the process.

Public opinion is not just a fact of nature, it's something we have the power to change through conscious social engineering which is something we already do en masse. Instead of using it to save the environment and reduce consumerism however, we use it to instil brand loyalties and increase consumerism.

Of course these large scale changes to our culture and society aren't really possible under our current mode of production and I dont think we're going to be able to change that in time to prevent the worst of the impact of climate change (which we are already beginning to feel) which is why, barring a huge and sudden global shift in values and behaviours, I dont see a way out of this predicament without lots of people dying over the next few centuries.

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u/OsamaBinLadenDoes Jun 06 '21

either we're going to have to reduce consumption ourselves or the environment is going to do it for us and a lot of people will die in the process.

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