Billionaires Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos’s foundations have just spent huge amounts of money to help President Biden’s current efforts to buy or obtain mineral rights in perpetuity that will allow the United States to open-pit mine rare earth metals in parts of Greenland.
As a presidential candidate, Biden missed a golden opportunity to show he was willing to work with all politicians, business owners, environmental groups, and native communities to develop a more balanced environmental plan.
A plan that would provide low-cost energy to those how need it, not increase the divisions between our country’s left and right, provide practical solutions to protecting our environment, and protect proven ways to keep our countries economy strong.
Would this process have worked? Not sure. But it would have been worth a try.
Rather than attempting to develop a balanced plan, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden decided to use buying all or parts of Greenland as a political weapon. As a result, President Biden is now caught in a dichotomy.
Support Greenland’s mining interests and Greenland politicians that envision a profitable venture or support native communities who strongly oppose huge open-pit mines (pictured above) that lie within their native lands and are adjacent to rivers and ocean bays along Greenland’s coastlines.
Until a few days ago, Joe Biden acted to obfuscate/cleverly hide his plans to buy parts of Greenland and then begin the process of open-pit mining.
This is an absolutely stunning reversal of promises made by then-presidential candidate Joe Biden and his Democratic Party.
Prior to the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden, numerous media outlets, political leaders of Greenland, the Danish Government, Hollywood celebrates, and United States environmental groups hammered former President Donald Trump concerning his efforts to buy Greenland.
PRE-ELECTION STATEMENTS
- Presidential candidate Joe Biden and his Democratic Party characterized President Trump’s efforts to purchase Greenland as ridiculous and without justification.
- Worldwide media outlets posted hundreds of articles demeaning, persecuting, and stating that Trump was the worst president ever.
- Greenland’s government dismissed Donald Trump’s offer to purchase Greenland stating, “We are not for sale”.
- The Danish Government, which owns Greenland, openly mocked President Trump’s efforts to purchase Greenland.
- Hollywood Celebrities such as Conan O’Brien made many disrespectful and disparaging remarks about Trump
- United States environmental groups were enraged concerning President Trump’s efforts to purchase Greenland because he would open huge mines that would result in a worldwide environmental disaster.
- The United States government supports native people’s rights to express their opinions. In this specific case, Biden and his administration said they would consider supporting Greenland’s Inuit Ataqatigiit Community’s stance to not allow mining in their native lands.
Suddenly and inexplicitly all of the aforementioned entities and individuals have done a “180-degree turn” relative to their pre-election statements and opinions.
They now say with 100% certainty that purchasing or owning in perpetuity the rights to mine Greenland’s rare earth metals is justified and necessary to save the planet.
POST-ELECTION STATEMENTS
President Biden now says he is open to “Working” with Greenland to facilitate the purchase, by any means, of Greenland’s rare earth metal accumulations. This transaction is likely to happen very soon.
Biden has also given orders to bypass all environmental and legal restrictions that have in the past impeded the expansion of the United States’ only remaining open-pit rare earth mine located in California.
Keep in mind that beginning in the 1980s, environmental groups began taking action to shut down all of the United States’ rare earth mines, saying they were destroying the environment. They succeeded.
The United States went from being the leader of mining and owning worldwide rare earth metals to having to rely on China for all rare earth metals. China now owns 90% of the world’s rare earth minerals.
Worldwide media outlets are now flooding the internet and presenting on their television news broadcasts the notion that purchasing or owning in perpetuity the rights to mine parts of Greenland is a great idea.
Greenland’s government is now in close communication with and helping the United States government’s attempt to purchase parts of Greenland, citing economic benefits.
The Danish Government is also in close communication with and helping the United States government purchase parts of Greenland.
Hollywood Celebrities such as Conan O’Brien have been silent. Remaining silent is indirect proof that these people support Biden’s intention to buy parts of Greenland.
Joe Biden has now decided to not support Greenland’s Inuit Ataqatigiit community. Instead, he has now decided to back the center-left Siumut Native Community, who believe that the mining would generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, create hundreds of jobs, and put Greenland in a stronger position to break away from Denmark.
United States environmental groups have also remained eerily silent, which suggests that they support President Biden’s efforts to mine rare earth minerals in Greenland. This is the most stunning reversal of previous statements.
By remaining silent the environmental groups have given Greenland mine owners the permission to dig up huge amounts of rock, crush it into small pieces using gasoline-powered machines, use 1,900 tons of freshwater to extract one ton of rare earth minerals, and construct a network of pipelines to transport the toxic radioactive waste into so-called environmentally safe “holding ponds” that will border the ocean.
It is important to note that recent environmental studies have proven that rivers and bays in the proposed mining site areas contain the highest concentration of natural mercury in the world.
This natural mercury was obviously introduced into Greenland’s environment from the same rocks that will be mined. Most environmentalists have for many years stated that mercury causes human health problems and endangers marine life forms.
Finally, the Biden administration has justified their push to open mines in Greenland by saying it is necessary to risk damaging Greenland’s environment to save our environment.
Biden’s administration has also said that mining Greenland’s rare earth metals are needed to achieve his goal of becoming 50% carbon-free by 2030 and 100% carbon-free by 2050.
The public deserves a more in-depth explanation of the politically charged and likely environmentally harmful consequences of mining rare earth metals in Greenland.
James Edward Kamis is a retired professional Geologist with 42 years of experience, a B.S. in geology from Northern Illinois University (1973), an M.S. in geology from Idaho State University (1977), and a longtime member of AAPG who has always been fascinated by the connection between geology and climate. More than 42 years of research/observation have convinced him that geological forces, especially Earth’s upper mantle convection systems that drive the dynamics of outer crustal plates, are an important driver of the Earth’s climate as per his Plate Climatology Theory.
Where are the Eco-Freaks to object to this the very same Eco-Freaks who oppose Logging and Fracking Where is those idiots from Greenpeace to oppose this?
It ought to be a lot easier now that all the ice is melted. Oh, wait…