🚨Chile's President Boric plans to nationalize lithium

Resource nationalism all the rage in Global South (Mexico, Indonesia, Bolivia) and North ("critical minerals" securitization) albeit from very distinct geoeconomic positions. But there's more to this🧵reuters.com/markets/commod… Boric situates this decision in the long sweep of Chilean history, referencing Allende's nationalization of copper. But this isn't a classic expropriation; instead it will be a public-private partnership in which state company collaborates with capital 2/

How much lithium is needed to electrify the car-dependent status quo vs transforming the transportation system to increase mass transit, walking & cycling? Our new @cpluscp report finds dramatic differences. We can achieve more mobility with less mining 1/ climateandcommunity.org/more-mobility-… By investing in public transportation systems, densifying cities, reversing the e-SUV trend, and recycling the US can minimize the impacts of lithium mining and maximize healthy, zero-emission options for getting around. Read @ninalakhani in @guardian 2/ theguardian.com/us-news/2023/j…

I’m thrilled to share my new article: “The Security-Sustainability Nexus” in Global Environmental Politics. I analyze the push to onshore lithium mining in US and EU, justified in terms of “national security” + “environmental sustainability”🧵 Open access: direct.mit.edu/glep/article/d… Mining is toxic, contentious, low value-add. Why do policymakers in powerful countries want “critical minerals” mined within their borders? The explanation lies in the fallout from the last commodity boom, China’s economic ascent and newly competitive green industrial policies 2/

Obviously the core contradiction of green capitalism is between the infinite imperative to accumulate and the need to ensure capital’s socionatural conditions of reproduction. But there are lots of subsidiary contradictions that are equally fascinating. Short thread 🧵1/6 For example: endless need for resources to extract vs. declining quality of remaining deposits (itself an outcome of extractivism). Predictably, AI companies offer a technofix for this contradiction, promising to uncover vast subsurface wealth w/ big data & machine learning 2/

Highly recommend this illuminating historical essay on Petrochemical Empire by Adam Hanieh in @NewLeftReview. Makes the crucial point that oil isn’t just fuel; it’s the base material of capitalist modernity. It did leave me with a few questions however 🧵 newleftreview.org/issues/ii130/a… A key refrain is petrochemicals’ transformation into second nature, replacing natural materials for synthetic (if originally ’organic’ via fossil fuel feedstock) ones. Vital point - but seems to downplay the coinciding decades of intensified extraction & unequal eco exchange? 1/

In the wake of Bernie leaving the race, the left will be divided between 3 interpretations:

1. Bernie should have been more antagonistic
2. Bernie should have been less antagonistic
3. There's no correct strategy, the entire game is rigged

A thread 1/ Everything is over-determined; each of these contains a truth.

But analysis should begin from structure before diagnosing tactics: given everything we believe as *socialists* it was improbable that a socialist would win the presidency absent massive popular organization 2/

Was the coup in Bolivia a "lithium coup"? Lithium is a key raw material for the emerging renewable transition, needed for EVs & battery storage. I've spent the last year researching lithium in South America & globally, I have thoughts about the lithium coup argument. A thread 1/ I agree the term "coup" is correct. But I am less convinced that the *motivation* for the coup was Bolivia's vast & mostly untapped lithium reserves. The "lithium coup" argument: Morales' resource nationalist policy provoked foreign investors& US gov. allies to destabilize him 2/

Ecuador is in revolt. Ever since he was elected, President Lenin (oh, historical irony) Moreno has moved to the right, embracing neoliberalism & IMF loan. Investors are ecstatic; Ecuadorians have been in the streets for a week. 1/ theguardian.com/world/2019/oct… The latest measures- elimination of fuel subsidies, pension privatization, labor "flexibilization"- were the last straw. In response, we see the re-articulation of a popular coalition reminiscent of 1990s-era uprisings: indigenous, labor unions, youth, urban neighborhood 2/

Since 2016, when mainstream media equated Donald Trump & Hugo Chávez as dangerous "populists," populism has been framed "threat to democracy." But now, w Warren deploying populist tropes, the establishment is confused. Maybe populism isn't Bad? Thread 1/ nytimes.com/2019/09/17/us/… The NYT frames Warren as populist bc her rhetoric targets the power of big corporations. Tho they primarily focus on her, they also lump her with Sanders, portraying them as offering a left-populist vision that counters both Trump's right-populism & Biden's neoliberal centrism 2/

Hi👋 "Senior Advisor" to @thedigradio here. Our ep w @mcdawson on racial capitalism & black politics, from revolutionary to neoliberal, should be required listening for leftists. & it made me think newer fans might appreciate a list of my fave episodes 1/ thedigradio.com/podcast/black-… So here it goes, in no particular order: indigenous resistance and settler colonialism with @nick_w_estes 2/ thedigradio.com/podcast/our-hi…

An exciting aspect of the #GreenNewDeal framework is possibilities for transnational solidarity & collaboration. One manifestation is the newly vibrant conversations and diffusion of proposals btwn social movements, leftist policy experts & academics across the Atlantic. 1/ Today, @gndforeurope launched an impressive plan to implement a GND for Europe that tackles the dual crises of neoliberal austerity & climate catastrophe. I suggest everyone give it a read 2/ report.gndforeurope.com

This was hard to read bc it could be about my parents (& maybe yours). There is an elderly bankruptcy crisis in America. Neoliberal policies destroyed unions, pensions & benefits, & inundate us with deceptively cheap credit. Families are now pools of intergenerational debt. 1/ The tragedy, and utter depravity of our society, is in the details. I used to think of astronomical student loan debt as a “millennials” issue: but these loans are increasingly co-signed by grandparents. #CancelStudentDebt would liberate students & seniors alike 2/

I've been thinking about time-as-domination, optimization, & its moods (guilt; depression; anxiety; isolation). And the alternative might be: freedom as control of our time. And, also, how to get there: admitting the demands are impossible; sharing grievances; naming the enemy 1/ I listened to @emilygee on @thedigradio recount her experiences in an Amazon warehouse, a call center, & a McDonalds. The common denominator is the relentless & minute control of time; a psychic war that seeps into life well beyond the workplace 2/ tinyurl.com/yyu9o6tm

Miners in Harlan County, KY are physically blocking a coal train from moving b/c the coal company Blackjewel declared bankruptcy & stole over 2 weeks of their wages & other benefits. This is the same county that saw militant coal worker uprisings in the 1930s and 70s. (1) "Just transition" can seem like an abstract promise & fossil fuel workers have good reason to be skeptical. But, for various reasons, these sectors are in crisis *now* & climate justice activists need to listen to worker grievances & support struggles against their bosses (2)

One of the thorniest aspects of the climate crisis is the fact that many workers make a living (& support broader communities) from work that is environmentally destructive. The workers in this category is broader than usually envisioned in the "Just Transition" frame 1/ @BueRubner calls these "batshit jobs": "when making a living is also a part of unmaking life on many scales: becoming sick from pollutants, destroying local environments, destabilizing the global climate"... 2/
opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocra…

I appreciate @ewarren pivoting from a question about jobs to the renewable energy transition, framing climate change as an issue of political economy & social equality. But I am disappointed with the economic nationalism that continues to pervade her thinking on these matters 1/ The US can't "own" the energy transition - and if it did, the beneficiaries would be the same capitalists that Warren derides earlier in her comments, and the losers would be the rest of us, and the planet 2/

The issue with apocalyptic framings of climate crisis is not that they overstate the gravity of the situation but that the temporality they evoke is one of total rupture. But the crisis has long been unfolding, w/ acute consequences in some places & diffuse effects in others. This multiplex and spatialized temporality—already happening; getting much worse; everywhere; some places more than others; acute; diffuse—is what we need to grapple with.

Barring major changes in consumption habits, a world powered by renewable energy is a world of dramatically intensified mining - cobalt, copper, lithium, rare earths - and, as a result, ecosystem destruction & human rights violations (1)
grist.org/article/report… Renewable energy isn't "clean" unless your carbon accounting starts & ends at electricity grids. Broaden your perspective, & each element of the renewable transition - EVs, energy storage, wind turbines - relies on multiple extractive frontiers (2)

I'm sure you've heard this one before: "But China emits more C02 than the US!" In case you need some handy facts to respond to this essentially conservative argument that downplays need for US to reduce emissions, here you go 1/ Europe & US are by far--by many orders of magnitude--the largest historic emitters of CO2 and this historic CO2 continues to warm the atmosphere 2/