The Lithium Gold Rush

In one version of a sustainable, carbon-neutral future, the world’s cars will transition from fossil fuels to electricity. Right now that vision absolutely depends on lithium, a primary component of the lithium-ion battery.

But there is no “Lithium Central Planning Committee” balancing supply and demand or making sure that lithium is mined in environmentally and socially responsible ways. In fact, there is almost no lithium mining in the United States at all. So where does it all come from? And who is being affected?

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The Darién Gap

There are places on the map where roads end.

The Darién Gap, or el Tapon del Darién, is one of them. It’s a stretch of rainforest in southern Panama, right on the edge of Central and South America. From a globetrotter’s perspective, the Darién Gap might seem to exist mostly as an obstacle to tourists dreaming of a truly epic road trip from Alaska to Tierra Del Fuego.

But, while a road is one way for movement, it’s not the only way to get somewhere. What happens, or does not happen, in a place without roads?

Featuring Jorge Ahumada, Roland Kays, Hector Huertas, Ustin Pascal Dubuisson, and Alicia Korten.

Credits

Outside/In was produced this week by Sam Evans-Brown with Justine Paradis and Taylor Quimby.

Erika Janik is our executive producer.

Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions.

For additional reading about the history of Pan-American highway and how it came to be that it is still incomplete, check out The Longest Line on the Map: The United States, the Pan-American Highway, and the Quest to Link the Americas by Eric Rutkow.

Special thanks to Nick Capodice, Pedro Mendez of the University of Panama, and Ross Irwin of Humanizando la Deportacion.

Title image by Alex Torrenegra via Flickr.

If you’ve got a question for our Ask Sam hotline, give us a call! We’re always looking for rabbit holes to dive down into. Leave us a voicemail at: 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). Don’t forget to leave a number so we can call you back.

Ask Sam: Spice Must Flow

Are snow-making machines an example of climate adaptation, or an example of an emissions feedback loop? Does the fire risk posed by planting trees outweigh the benefits of their use as a carbon sink? Can the team talk big planet problems and still leave room for bad puns? We’ll answer these questions and more climate queries on this special edition of Ask Sam.

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Ginkgo Love

In 2016, we produced an episode about the ginkgo tree titled "Ginkgo Stink." But the episode contained an offensive phrase and failed to consider a nonwhite perspective of this amazing species.

In this episode, we’re correcting our mistake, and adding some context about what exactly we got so wrong. First you’ll here Producer Felix Poon share his personal relationship with the ginkgo tree and explores the history of food-related racism in the United States. And then you’ll hear the original story, edited to sound the way it should have when we first produced it four years ago.

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Fruit Fight!!!

For months, producer Taylor Quimby has been trying to craft a story about spicy peppers. Every one of his pitches has been shot down…until now. On this episode of Outside/In, a CULINARY challenge, a DELICIOUS debate, a FANTASTIC food fight in which four producers argue about which seed-bearing delicacy is the ABSOLUTE best. Of course these fruits aren’t the ones you typically think of when you’re making a fruit salad…

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Massachusetts v EPA

Today on the show, we’re bringing you inside what may be the most important environmental Supreme Court Decision in history. Massachusetts v. EPA declared that greenhouse gases are pollution under the definition set out by one of the nation’s oldest and most successful environmental laws, the 1970 Clean Air Act. The case determined that if the executive branch wanted to do so, it could confront one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century with one of the most celebrated laws of the 20th century. As such, ultimately, it’s a story of the power … and the limits… of the law.

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Inside/In: Mold and Moss

Hydro-Québec, the world’s fourth largest hydropower producer, pumps out low carbon electricity at the cheapest rates in North America. For some, it is the key to a greener, more prosperous, future, but that “clean energy” comes freighted with a complicated history and an uncertain future. This is the story of how a massive, state-owned utility company came to be a symbol of the French-Canadian people. It’s also the story of how a company, with all of the force of a colonial culture behind it, used its power to try to push Quebec’s original occupants—its indigenous people—to one side. It’s the story of how that effort led to something that has become its own kind of revolution in Canada: native people pushing to regain power over their own lives and culture. And it’s a story about the environmental benefits and human costs of clean energy. 

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