Most of us are convinced that fossil fuels are evil. We now shudder at all that syrupy organic material, the dead plants and animals swallowed and digested by the earth, a soup of black bile that we used to siphon up like broke teenagers with a mind to cruise but without the cash to make it happen.

But now we’re all grown up and the bill has come due in the form of global carbon emissions that threaten to cook us into oblivion. And, perhaps too late, we recognize our mistake.

Or do we?

There is a principle that I hold close: what happens in the world is a reflection of our state. The universe is a mirror.

It’s an important principle, because it moves me away from considering solutions to fix problems that are “out there.”

There are no problems out there.

Wondrous is the affair of the believer, for there is good for him in every matter. And this is not the case for any except the believer.

Prophet Muhammad, may the peace and blessings of God be upon him

The challenges that surround us should, in every case, force introspection, a “personal inventory,” in the language of recovery. Where we pursue this inventory with rigorous honesty we will find opportunities for growth, and this is good. For the believer, this is the point.

Sadly, this introspection isn’t happening at any appreciable level. So we move from exploitation to exploitation.

“So much destruction,” she said. “And for what? So eco-minded urbanites in Paris and Berlin can feel good about driving around in zero-emission cars.”

Those are the words of Maria Carmo, quoted in a piece from The Guardian. She is a university lecturer in Portugal lamenting the pending calamity of lithium extraction in her area. Lithium is the least dense of all the metals and therefore stores a remarkable amount of energy for its weight. This makes lithium the darling of battery manufacturers and virtually every one of your portable electronic devices has a degree of portability that would not be possible without lithium. Demand is already high, but the clarion call to end carbon emissions and the promise of the electric vehicle will take lithium extraction to a whole new level.

They’re already calling it “white oil.”

And although extraction methods do not at present seem devastating on the level of fossil fuels, this may likely be a question of scale. Most of the world’s lithium comes from Australia with other significant deposits in Chile, China, and Argentina. Operations are in rural, largely unpopulated places. These are fragile ecosystems without enough people present to vouch for the majesty and complexity of what is being traded for profit.

Like Chile’s Atacama Desert. It holds much more than lithium.

Lithium is expensive for Europeans who had no local sources, until recently. Prospectors have their eye on Portugal, and, as with all of the other mineral “rushes” in contemporary human history, we would be naïve to think that anything other than immediate short-term financial gain will have the day.

And that’s what has Maria Carmo so upset. But it’s worse than predictable financial exploitation. These prospectors leverage the environmental argument: Portugal has the opportunity to play a pivotal role in the reduction of global carbon emissions throughout Europe and beyond.

It’s a rationalization that is sure to be taken up wherever lithium deposits are found. And where actual mining can’t take place, people will invest. We will ride the boom until it busts.

Because that’s what we do. It’s what we’ve always done. And it will never change.

If you were reading this anticipating a better idea, some kind of solution, I don’t have one. There are some interesting ideas around recycling lithium, but that’s expensive and not immediately practical.

I don’t have a solution, but I do have a way out.

Stop trying to save the world. You can’t. You won’t. It will end and this is promised. Revelation and physics agree on this.

Better to learn from it. Better to understand that it is our greed and desire that corrupts. Lithium or fossil fuels, black oil or “white”- these are all stand-ins for the deposits that stiffen hearts to the point where being content is something few of us actually ever experience.

If you see in this an opportunity for engagement and activism, guard your heart and recognize from the outset the limits of your actions. Let your activism be a means of saving your own soul, for the world is lost:

Everything will be destroyed except His Face. His is the judgement, and to Him you will be returned.

Qur’an 28:88

And if you see in this an opportunity to withdraw, then let your withdrawal be in love and not in disdain. Do not leave the world in disgust, but rather out of an altruism that refuses to let you do harm by your presence.

Walk more. Eat less. And think twice before putting your money down on that new Tesla.

You can read The Guardian article here.

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