Charging Forward: Lithium Valley, Electric Vehicles, and a Just Future
California's Salton Sea region is home to some of the worst environmental health conditions in the country. It is also ground zero for a new "lithium gold rush"--a race to extract a mineral critical to the rapidly expanding electric vehicle and renewable energy storage markets. With enough lithium lurking beneath the surface to provide a third of global demand, who will benefit from the development of this precious resource?
A work of stunning analysis and reporting, Charging Forward shows that the questions raised by Lithium Valley lie at the heart of the "green transition." Weaving together movement politics, federal policy, and global supply chains, noted experts Chris Benner and Manuel Pastor stress that extracting lithium is just a first step: the real question is whether the region and the nation will address and overcome the environmental degradation, labor exploitation, and racial injustice that have been as much a part of the landscape as the Salton Sea itself.
What happens in Lithium Valley, the authors argue, will not stay there. This tiny patch of California is a microcosm of the broad climate challenges we face; understanding Lithium Valley today is the key to grasping the future of our economy and our planet.
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"Charging Forward stresses the importance of social, racial, and environmental justice in this Green New Deal revolution, explores the movement's effects on the auto industry, and details where it went wrong for the workers and the environment."
--Booklist
"Over a decade ago, I wrote about how we could save the planet, generate jobs, and ensure justice. This vision is finally being realized and perhaps nowhere more dramatically than in Lithium Valley. Charging Forward brilliantly uses the Valley to illustrate what's at stake as we move to a clean energy world. Clear-eyed that we cannot change the way we deliver power until we change who wields power, Benner and Pastor offer both hard-headed analysis and hope for a just future."
--Denise Fairchild, Emerald Cities Collaborative president emerita "Two of our most inspired intellectuals bring us an important glimpse into the future--and the choices we face in making a more equitable world."
--Natalie Foster, Economic Security Project president and author of The Guarantee: Inside the Fight for America's Next Economy "Charging Forward covers the planet, exposing the damages of mineral extraction worldwide and finally landing us in a California desert with enough lithium to fuel our national transition to a cleaner future. With companies circling for profits and communities banding for protection, Benner and Pastor offer us a ringside seat to the fights that will determine whether we get the future frontline communities want--and deserve."
--Gloria Walton, president and CEO of The Solutions Project
