{"product_id":"living-minerals-isbn-9780262553704","title":"Living Minerals","description":"\u003cb\u003eA sobering investigation of the rush for lithium for electric vehicles, the problematic history of lithium mining, and the consequences for sustainability.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eConsumers today are buying electric vehicles with lithium-ion batteries motivated by the belief that they are doing good and decarbonizing society. But is sustainable lithium extraction possible? In \u003ci\u003eLiving Minerals\u003c\/i\u003e, Javiera Barandiarán examines the history of lithium mining and uses during the twentieth century, with a specific focus on the two oldest brine-lithium mines: Silver Peak, Nevada, and Salar de Atacama, Chile, where lithium is found as one more element in a liquid mix of salts, minerals, and organisms.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor six decades, mining experts have failed to ask about water usage, about waste or brine leakage, and about the ecosystem impacts in delicate deserts. Instead, they have relied on various fictions about the size of reserves, the fate of leaked brine, or the value of waste in facilitating mine development. These fictions, rooted in brine-lithium’s material qualities, could be sustained thanks to powerful mining memories that celebrated resource nationalism. Unique in its historical and multidimensional approach to minerals and mining, based on the novel Rights of Nature paradigm, and using new archival materials from both Chile and the US, the book argues that decarbonizing society requires that we reckon with these realities—or risk deepening our dependency on an unsustainable mining industry.Acknowledgments\u003cbr\u003eAcronyms and Company Names\u003cbr\u003eMap 1: Western US\u003cbr\u003eMap 2: Northern Chile\u003cbr\u003eMap 3: Atacama Desert and Salt Flat, Chile\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003e1 Exhausting Natures: Fragile Deserts, Constant Science\u003cbr\u003e2 Mining Memories: The Nitrate and Copper Trades\u003cbr\u003e3 Estimating Lithium Reserves for Tomorrow’s Energy Technologies\u003cbr\u003e4 Industrial Science and Desert Brines in Nevada and Chile\u003cbr\u003e5 Managing Brines for Future Generations\u003cbr\u003eConclusion\u003cbr\u003eAppendix: Archive Abbreviations and Interviews Completed\u003cbr\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eReferences\u003cbr\u003eIndex\u003cb\u003eENDORSEMENTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Lithium appears to offer us the hope of a renewable future. This powerful book shows us how much our thinking about the history and life of minerals must change for that hope to survive.”\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e—Timothy Mitchell, author of \u003ci\u003eCarbon Democracy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Drawing on deep historical work, \u003ci\u003eLiving Minerals\u003c\/i\u003e proposes a new paradigm for approaching the world’s resources in a time of planetary crisis: Rather than resource nationalism, we should understand minerals as parts of the ecosystems under threat of extinction. Brilliant!”\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e—Gabrielle Hecht, author of \u003ci\u003eResidual Governance\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eBeing Nuclear\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"Telling the history of lithium mining in the US and Chile, this book reexamines nationalist memories of mining glory and growth, opening up the imagination to post-extractivist, post-growth alternatives.\"\u003cb\u003e \u003cbr\u003e—Giorgos Kallis, Professor, Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies and the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Autonomous University of Barcelona\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eJaviera Barandiarán is Associate Professor in Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Director of UCSB’s Center for Restorative Environmental Work. She has published four books, including\u003ci\u003e Science and Environment in Chile \u003c\/i\u003e(MIT Press). For her research on lithium mining, she won a Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin and a fellowship at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center.","brand":"The MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233340174565,"sku":"NP9780262553704","price":55.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780262553704.jpg?v=1767731599","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/living-minerals-isbn-9780262553704","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}