America’s solution to the climate and economic crises currently hinges on a mine in Northern Nevada. Thacker Pass would be the largest lithium mine in the United States, with ambitions of becoming a sprawling mining district, stretching across the Oregon border. In the final days of the Trump Administration, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management granted a Canadian company called Lithium America a permit to open this mine. Tesla and other companies have already built major factories in the surrounding areas to be close to the key ingredient needed in long-range electric cars.

Despite the “promise” of an economic boom, locals are fighting to stop this mine from being built.

Thacker Pass is the sacred, historic site of two major massacres of the Indigenous Northern Paiute people — one well before colonization, and one in 1865, by the U.S. Calvary. They call it Peehee Mu’huh, or rotten moon — named for what it smelled like after the first massacre, when a warring tribe left the corpses of women, children and elders to rot, draping their intestines over the sagebrush.

A group of land defenders, led by The People of Red Mountain, adamantly oppose this mine. They fear the mine will poison their water, air and soil, irreparably damaging the ecosystem. It will destroy their sacred place forever. Some of the defenders are direct descendants of the only survivors of the U.S. Calvary’s massacre — Ox Sam, Jimmy and Charlie Thacker, and two young girls.

The People of Red Mountain want to protect their culture and spare their land and people further harm. They want to stop westward expansion, and they want to stop history from repeating itself.

“It’s really big because if we could stop Thacker Pass, then everything else will fall into place,” says Josh Dini, who is from the Walker River Paiute tribe. He’s an ally of The People of Red Mountain, who gave him permission to interview with me. “Traditionally, that’s how we do things. We ask permission.”

Josh is the younger brother of Myron Dewey, a Walker River Paiute member, and prolific Indigenous journalist, who famously used drones to document Standing Rock, a Lakota-lead effort to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016-17. I met Myron at the Standing Rock camps, as we both were in and out of the Media Tent, an outpost where journalists learned the rules for reporting at Oceti Sakowin Camp. I loved, like a wallflower, to watch him work. He had a big smile, and ecxcelled at testing new technologies, finding creative ways to use live streaming and getting out the message about what was being done to water protectors. Mainstream media often reported Standing Rock as a “protest,” but a number of Indigenous journalists and water protectors considered it a continuation of the Indian Wars, the centuries-long violence of colonization, where the U.S. Government attempted to eradicate Indigenous peoples and control their land and resources.

Myron died in September 2021 on his drive home from a reporting trip, where he covered the U.S. Navy’s attempt to expand bombing ranges onto Northern Paiute and Shoshone land. Some consider Myron’s death “suspicious” — he was a well-known journalist with his fair share of critics – largely, members of the U.S. government and private corporations, whose business he investigated.

At the time of his death, Myron was keeping an eye on attempts to mine Peehee Mu’huh. And since his death, new mining proposals have popped up all around Nevada – including one on the Pyramid Lake reservation, where Josh lives now.

“They want to take water from our lake, transport it 40 miles from a factory, mix it with some chemicals to extract the lithium, and then pump it back here. Tell me, does that make sense to you? We use this lake to fish, feed ourselves, and swim.”

I shake my head – not much of what I've seen this week makes sense to me. But at the same time, it absolutely does: the government still treats the west like a resource colony, ignoring the importance of Indigenous culture and survival. A refrain from Standing Rock comes to mind: The Indian Wars never ended.

Thacker Pass and Pyramid Lake are two mines out of the hundreds proposed worldwide to meet the recent demand for lithium-ion batteries — the core component in electric vehicles. Because entire cities and countries have pledged to “Go Green”' by transitioning their gas-powered vehicles to electric, the demand for lithium is expected to increase 40 fold over the next two decades.

Before such climate promises, lithium was a relatively niche metal, mined from a few established pits and brine operations around the globe. Now, countries like Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mali, Serbia, and states like Nevada are seeing an exponential increase in the desire for prospecting and development.

But, though these promises of “zero-emissions vehicles” sound good to the general public, the reality is that these fleets rely heavily on new extraction, development, and disruption of Indigenous land, lives, and health.

Across the state of Nevada, which is much more green, lush, and full of wildlife than I realized, there are 56 proposed, active, or dormant lithium mines. There are over approximately 200,000 abandoned mines total in Nevada, with 50,000 of them still posing public health and safety hazards. Many are adjacent to ghost towns that companies left abandoned, after supply, interest or work wore out. According to Josh, there are over 11,000 new permits across the state for mining companies, too. And according to Joe Biden’s Defense Product Act, more may be on the way.

The expansion of the electric grid and the creation of new electric vehicle fleets is the White House’s running solution to “curb carbon emissions” and protect the country from the “devastating effects of climate change.” In response to the Russia/Ukraine War, Biden has attempted to “promote the national defense, [so] the United States must secure a reliable and sustainable supply of such strategic and critical materials.” This is to say, in response to a war thousands of miles away, Biden has promised to pilfer more public and Indigenous lands – despite the fact that doing just the opposite was one of his core campaign promises.

This electric expansion is pitched as a “bipartisan solution.” It claims to address both the Democrat’s desire for climate action, and the Republicans’ wish to perpetually grow the economy and create jobs. But, this solution makes me think of an old punk quote: “The Republicans and Democrats are both forces of empire… It’s just that the Republicans are the offensive wing, while the Dems play defense.” Oof.

Despite the fact that many climate reports, like the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and surveys of biodiversity acknowledge that Indigenous stewardship and Traditional Ecological Knowledge are key to keeping the planet safe from disruption and further climate change, plans to mine more Indigenous land in Nevada (and worldwide) are legally (and, in some places, physically) well underway.

The BLM issued the permit to mine Thacker Pass on Jan. 15, 2021, just 11 days before President Trump left office, and a little over one week after he led a failed coup. An anti-mining resistance camp materialized near-immediately on the land in Thacker Pass and was held down by local Paiutes, Shoshone, Washoe and land defender allies alike, until early 2022, when it split up, after severe winter snow, threats from the Bureau of Land Management, and interpersonal issues. Currently, archaeologists are surveying the land for artifacts, and a coalition of local ranchers, environmentalists, and Indigenous groups have filed lawsuits aimed at stopping the mine.

“This so-called transition to clean energy is on the backs of Indigenous people,” Daranda Hinkey tells me. She is 24 and, along with her family, is one of the leaders of The People of Red Mountain. She has freckles and is a bit shorter than me. She is determined to protect her history, but I can tell she’s had a very long day. “To me, with the Thacker Pass mine is the destruction of Peehee Mu’huh. And, you know, that's cultural genocide to me.”

When she says this, I have to swallow my emotions. Like a knife, they hit my gut: she shouldn’t have to be doing this. She deserves better than having to fight genocide at 24… or ever.

Lithium mining typically happens one of two ways: a traditional open pit mine which requires extensive water and chemicals (like sulfuric acid) to process; or a brine mine, where salty water from deep in the earth is pumped to the surface, mixed with chemicals, so the lithium evaporates out. Both methods incur extensive, and long-lasting, damage to the surrounding environment. Both methods pollute the land and air. An open-pit mine is planned for Thacker Pass.

Daranda says the water in her nearby hometown is already poisoned with mercury from a previous mine. She explains that not only are there environmental concerns to worry about, but that mining projects often bring in out-of-state workers, who are housed in nearby accommodations, colloquially called “man camps.” The influx of stress, long hours, cash, impunity, and men in these camps can lead to a sharp increase of violence in local communities, often disproportionately affecting Indigenous women, girls, and Two Spirits.

“And so,” she says, “there's a lot at stake, and there's a lot of things that happen afterwards as well, like the social acts aspects of Missing and Murdered, Murdered Indigenous People.”

I ask Daranda what she would say to Tesla, or Lithium America, if she could have their ear. Her answer conveys her resolve, as well as foreboding.

“It's just not fair that the transition to electric vehicles, and whatnot, is on the backs of Indigenous people. And it's something to start thinking about and recognizing, because Indigenous people are not going away. They're honestly just getting a little bit angrier every time something like this has to happen. And there's passion and there's anger and there, they want something to be done.”

I think I’ve met my new hero.

I say goodbye to Daranda and head from Thacker Pass, back to Winnemucca, a hotel and casino town, made famous by Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere.” Drawing a bath, I wonder where the water comes from, and what’s in it.

John Hadder, a mining expert and the director of the Great Basin Resource Watch, informed me that mines can pollute “up to 40 miles of groundwater” from the site. While Thacker Pass is not yet built, I remember Daranda’s story of mercury and all the developments I saw on my drive.

John also told me that pit mines, such as the one planned for Thacker Pass, look like “taking a bite out of a mountain.”

I reflect on the landscape: golden grass; lush, green creeks; hawks and ravens playing together in the sky. I wonder what that bite would do to them.

The area around Thacker Pass is one of the most intact ecosystems I have seen in a while. The ground is covered — I mean covered — in huge, juicy crickets. The hawks, rodents, and big cats are clearly eating well.

I remember another damning call: that with climate change is coming the 6th mass extinction. I do a quick google. This extinction is also being called the Holocene extinction or the Anthropocene extinction, and I wonder: do the scientists think they’re being cute, naming this travesty like a Grimes album? Not only does Elon Musk get to profit off of sending species to their deaths, they name that death after his girlfriend’s record. But, I digress.

This mass extinction is being caused, not just by the nebulous "carbon emissions," but by habitat destruction— which will certainly occur if the Thacker Pass mine is built.

The most common response to any critique is a flustered “Okay, well, if that’s not good enough for you, how would you solve it?” So, after visiting Thacker Pass, I spoke with electric vehicle owners and lithium scientists, trying to preempt the fluster.

I called my high school math teacher, Dr. Steve Condie, a kind retiree from Naperville, Illinois. He loves his students and is doing his best to leave the world a better place than he found it.

“I got my Tesla because I wanted a cool car, and it drives so nicely. It has a really nice pick up, and it’s quiet,” he said. “Plus, when you plan out a route, it will tell you where to stop and charge it. Sometimes, the charging takes 30-40 minutes, but I don’t really mind because I’m retired, so I have a good amount of time.” He told me a cute story about walking his dog and getting to eat hotdogs at picnic tables on a long road trip. Amidst the stress, it made me smile.

“One of the reasons I bought [my Tesla] was because I wanted to be better to the environment. Just the emissions are a big thing, right? That's one of the biggest contributors to the carbon problem, right? As far as, with my limited knowledge and so. So, I think it's, you know, it, behooves us all to go electric.”

He paused for a moment. “But what are you about to tell me?”

Softly, I explained my time in Nevada. I told him about the issues the Northern Paiute and surrounding tribes are facing. His voice turned sad and glum, almost immediately. “Let's put it that way. I wish you hadn't told me. Hopefully, the U.S. government will do the right thing, but I have very low faith in that. That’s just the way the money works, unfortunately.”

I told him I would speak to a lithium scientist that evening, to figure out if there were other solutions for the lithium, the mining or electric vehicles. But the news is bleak. Lithium can only be recycled by someone going through the batteries, collecting and cleaning the soft, shimmering, clay-like metal. Because it’s so light, lithium burns off when batteries are smelted down; so far, no one has figured out how to mass recycle it.

That means, for now, all lithium for electric vehicle batteries will be freshly mined.

The lithium boom revealed a major issue in the scientific community: not a whole lot is known about batteries, besides the fact that they work. A lithium-ion battery researcher out of Seattle explained, “I was expecting the field as a whole to understand batteries better than they do. They got something that works, but they didn't really figure out how it was all working.” She requested to remain anonymous, so her analysis of the field at large wouldn’t come back to her company.

She says these blind spots extend to recycling, too, but that so much money is being pumped into the industry that a lot of people are working to learn recycling techniques, and the question is becoming mainstream.. “It feels like people are kind of scrambling to answer all these questions, and it’s like oh shit, we didn’t think to ask that question because we just had this system that worked.”

Apparently, this rush is a dynamic underlying the entire eclectic vehicle movement. “This panic is really what’s driving it. People need to have something to comfort themselves, and they’re so dependent on the next solution to be something bigger and more complicated, because that’s what we think of progress,” the researcher says.

She explains that, in the Pacific Northwest, jokes about climate change have become almost slang, and she does our entire interview, sitting in front of a fan, half in agony. There’s a heatwave in Seattle that week, and it’s almost 110 degrees. Ten years ago, it was newsworthy for the heat index to spike about 100 degrees, and now, “that’s pretty regular.”

I go back to thinking about what John Hadder, the Reno-based mining expert, told me: “When we had horses and buggies, we had this huge local problem – there was manure everywhere. Literally, piles of manure that no one knew how to deal with. When the car was invented, people were so relieved, because city streets were so much cleaner. But, 100 years into this technology, we’ve caused pipeline leaks, holes in the ozone. We took a local problem and made it into a global problem, because we didn’t even realize what could happen. I wonder about the lack of information, research, and patience about this lithium mining…. I wonder if we’re going to create an even worse problem for ourselves.”

When I think of booms and rushes, an element of crisis sets in. Folks reacting, picking up everything and betting all their coins on something new. There is this air of panic, fright, threat, and opportunity in the way mining expansion and new technologies are introduced.

I can’t help but think of an article my mentor wrote: “Fuel’s Rush In,” a play on foolishness, and critique of the push for oil at the expense of Indigenous communities. I remember, he got his start investigating the harm Uranium caused to the Navajo Nation in the 1970s – another “clean energy” gone horribly wrong. To this day, bathwater on the Navajo Nation can be gritty and tinted yellow, still tainted with traces of the nuclear chemical and arsenic. To this day, at least 26% of Navajo moms and babies have trace amounts of uranium in their systems, and most families on the reservation have lost at least one relative to uranium-related cancer.

I wonder: what can we learn, now, from the last “clean energy” rush? How much collateral chaos has that poisoned water caused? How much panic has the increased rates of cancer caused? Why does it feel like no one is stepping back and thinking?

I remember Dr. Condie’s quote: “That’s just the way that money works,” and honestly, I feel defeated. How can you stop a force, a pattern that’s been ricocheting off Indigenous lands and civilian lives for generations? How can you address a problem that, with every solution, seems to cause worse harm? How do you soothe a cultural panic?

Perhaps, the scientist has the answer: “People ask me all the time, do I think lithium batteries are going to save the world? Should I buy an electric vehicle? And my response is always – the best thing you can do for the environment is not get rid of your old car. And to slow down. You know what I mean? Like, you getting a new car, with all of the metal and all the batteries that go into that… waste. Get one if you absolutely need to get one, but if you've got a perfectly functional car, and you're just switching over to the Tesla because you want to ‘save the planet’... that’s not how that works. Reducing is the first step of the reduce, reuse, recycle plan. Reducing is, by far, the most effective tool.”

Or maybe, Dr. Condie, the Tesla owner, has the solution: “If we had much better mass transportation, I could do without a car, but it would be really tough. The suburbs, where I live, and rural places are just not set up for public transportation. We would have to really invest a lot of money and thought into a new system, to serve these areas that were really designed for car transit.”

Does Josh know? “I’ve always just said, let’s go back to riding horses. But I don’t know. They would be a good way to connect back and to not destroy the land. We wouldn’t have to build more roads. We wouldn’t have to use oil or lithium. I feel like it might be beneficial.”

What if Tesla knows? I contacted Corporate Media Relations, but I never heard back. I wanted to know what the company tells would-be buyers, so I visited one of their dealerships. I posed as someone looking to buy a vehicle, because I wanted to know how they addressed this issue to consumers. The only other customer in the store was an old man who was so absent-minded, I was, frankly, surprised he could still drive. He looked between two two models to get a price check. Whatever he decided on, it totaled $73,330.23.

After patiently dealing with him, a blonde sales rep came to talk with me. Her name was Kylie, like the Jenner. I told her I wanted to understand Tesla’s environmental impact and the difference between electric and gas cars.

“You know,” she said, “50% of our customers don’t even care about that… Most people are just trying to save money. But the battery, that’s what makes it great. Zero emissions.”

I nodded.

She went on, “What are you driving now?”

“A Subaru,” I told her.

“See, yeah. Our cars are much cleaner. A battery can last from 350,000 to half a million miles, which is more than you’ll probably ever drive in your lifetime. You’ll die before this car does.”

I nodded. “Well, what about if I have to replace the battery? Do you recycle it?”

“Not all information is public,” she explained. “But, I think we try to. I’m not an expert on that. If you think about it, though, replacing the battery is way cleaner than whatever you’d do with those gas cars right? I mean... If your engine goes out on one of those, you just take it to the junkyard and crush the whole thing up, right?”

I nodded. Now was not the time to teach her about classic car restoration, explain how much I like fixing my car, or to tell her about my friend who just rehabbed a 1933 Ford Coupe.

“And anyway, our cars have zero emissions,” that word again, emission, “which is way better than oil. You know, you have to, like, frack to get that stuff. And that’s so dirty.”

“Oh yah, I’ve heard about fracking,” I told her. Omitting the part where I’ve written, like, half a dozen stories on fracking; omitting the part where, many of the same core issues regarding fracking are parallel to mining issues.

“So yeah, you’re just better off with one of our cars.”

I nodded, wondering if smugness was just as much part of the product as the battery. She gave me the Tesla 2021 Impact Report to look up and told me to watch Elon Musk’s quarterly lectures.

“They’re great,” she said. “I bet they’ll answer all your questions.”

Somehow, I’m not so sure.

As I left, Daranda’s voice got stuck in my head, from our interview by Peehee Mu’huh, “It’s all a lie – or, it’s a half truth,” she said. “They’re just telling you the good parts, and not the bad.”

By the door, I see a digital sign “Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” I thought of Accelerationism — the idea that, if we force society into unlivable conditions, they’ll have no choice but to change. I wonder if that reference is intentional.

Looking over the 2021 Impact Report, I see the only mention of Nevada deals with the Gigafactory, where they claim to recycle batteries (but, again, not lithium, according to my scientist). The report mentions they offer social programs for local communities and hire recent community college grads to work. I recall one more fact from my trip to Reno: a camera store employee, about my age, telling me how rent had been skyrocketing, ever since Tesla moved in a few years ago. His monthly rent for a 125-square-foot apartment used to be $550; now, it’s $1,000.

Sustainable, huh?

As of 2021, Tesla only seems to be refining lithium in the USA, not yet mining it. One of the most interesting things about its impact report is how it says, repeatedly, that 100% of the mining operations face multiple audits, but it does not provide results of those audits. I remember what Kylie said, “Not all information is public.”

The Peehee Mu’huh mine would emit the same amount of carbon as a small city and would utilize 1.7 billion gallons of water per year. Radioactive and corrosive chemicals may leak into the groundwater of the driest state in the country. And again, the cultural sites, which are still actively tended and used by the Northern Paiute and surrounding tribes, will be destroyed.

The proposed damage to Pyramid Lake is yet unknown, but the prospect of pumping out water, chemically processing it, and then returning it to the lake sparks imaginations of mass wildlife die off and unswimmable water – gone, a source of recreation and nutrition. A home. Habitats.

“Hopefully your story can do something good about that. So more people get aware. I think really, all the stories about the pipeline going through the Native Lands… that made a huge impact.” Dr. Condie told me.

At this point, I just feel exhausted – yes, electric cars create less emissions while driving. But no, this process, this car culture, this sacrifice of Indigenous lands for the promises of "progress"… this is not sustainable.