One philosophical approach says that how we mine lithium is just as important as why we mine it. The ‘end’ of a green economy is tied to the means we use to get there. We speak with an expert who tells us that nonviolence is a good tool to use in thinking about how we make the just transition to a new energy economy.

The reading list:

• The Climate Minute's Lithium Series, Episode 1- The Lithium Lens
• The Climate Minute's Lithium Series, Episode 2- Lithium at the Critical Juncture
• The Climate Minute's Lithium Series, Episode 3-Troubling facts about mining.
• The Climate Minute's Lithium Series, Episode 5- Ends, Means, Nonviolence and Lithium
• Gan's book : Violence and Nonviolence
• Gandhi's Means and Ends philosophy
• https://reallifemag.com/appropriate-measures/
• https://www.deccanchronicle.com/opinion/columnists/011218/dividing-lines-of-science-gandhi-and-climate-change.html
• https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/news/gandhi-at-150-what-the-mahatmas-legacy-means-for-environmental-challenges-today/
• https://www.labor4sustainability.org/jtlp-2021
• https://mettacenter.org/daily-metta/means-ends-daily-metta/
• https://southasiamonitor.org/spotlight/understanding-mahatma-gandhis-philosophy-ends-and-means
• https://www.mkgandhi.org/ebks/environment.pdf

Barry L. Gan is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at St. Bonaventure University. He is the author of Violence and Nonviolence: An Introduction. He is also co-editor with Robert L. Holmes of a leading anthology on nonviolence, Nonviolence in Theory and Practice, now in a third edition; and for twenty-five years he was editor of The Acorn: Journal of the Gandhi-King Society. For two years he served as program committee chair of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the oldest and largest interfaith peace group in the United States, and also served for three years as co-editor of Peace and Change, a quarterly journal of peace research.

After receiving his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in philosophy from the University of Rochester in 1981 and 1984, respectively, he taught at St. Bonaventure University for thirty-six years before retiring in 2021. Prior to that he taught high school and junior high school English for six years. He is married to Miaoli Zhang, a former trainer in microscopic photography for Olympus of China. He has a daughter who is a writer and previously worked as School Programs Coordinator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, a son who is a writer and now works in the field of search engine optimization, and a stepson who also does freelance writing.

Because we recognize the necessity of personal accountability for our actions, because we accept responsibility for a building a durable future and because we believe it is our patriotic duty as citizens to speak out, we must insist the United States transform it’s energy sector, over the next decade, under a just and equitable plan, that uses regulations, investments and a price on carbon to safeguard our collective future.

Thanks for listening.

…Ted McIntyre