Antimony Mining on Nez Perce Land & the Justifications of Ecological Modernization Theory
Supply chain issues are all over the United States’ news nowadays. With COVID-19’s restructuring of the global economy and Russia being cut from Western marketplaces due to the Russo-Ukrainian War, the US has been trying to secure its supply chain in the face of this adversity. Executive Order 14017, signed by President Biden in 2021, shows just how significant the supply chain is to the future of the American economy. Antimony, a metal mined by Perpetua Mining, is specifically highlighted in the order.[1] Antimony’s acid resistance and easy electron transfer makes it an ideal material for building renewable energy batteries. These batteries store electricity generated by variable energy sources such as wind and solar, since they wax and wane throughout the day. EO14017 falls in line with the Biden Administration’s commitment towards fighting climate change using market-based strategies, as was also the case for the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Perpetua took the executive order as permission to continue their pursuits of antimony for the noble goal of fighting the climate crisis by providing valuable resources to the market for producing renewable energy batteries. The company even put out a statement directly referencing EO14017, stating that it is a direct mandate from the government for Perpetua to keep its mining practices ongoing. This is governmental encouragement of Perpetua’s actions, plain and simple. Ecological Modernization Theory (EMT) is in full effect here, demonstrating that neoliberalism (represented by Biden’s governance) and capitalism (represented by Perpetua) can work together to reliably fight to defend environmental causes. EMT, however, begins to fall apart once colonized peoples and lands are taken into account.
Near Nez Perce Reservation land sits the antimony that keeps the profits of Perpetua rolling and feeds the US’ hunger for solar and wind batteries. The reservation sits within Idaho, having shrunk from centuries of broken treaties and violations of indigenous sovereignty. Luckily for Perpetua, no actual land rights are being violated by their proposed open-pit gold mine in the Salmon River Mountains.[2] The mountains’ namesake, however, reveals the heart of Nez Perce opposition to the mine’s construction: Nez Perce water and salmon supplies could be drastically restricted should a mine of this scale be built so close to the reservation’s natural resources. A dilemma is therefore raised: Is it more important to secure antimony for the sake of fighting climate change than to ensure that Indigenous Americans have their autonomy respected? The former directly promotes economic and environmental colonization of Native Americans, a group of people who have historically been lied to and cheated by the US Government through genocide. However, it is a goal that the Biden Administration is now legislatively mandated to pursue under the IRA. The latter would not only fail to keep the US supply chain secure, as the US would need to seek antimony from other nations such as China, which is susceptible to international interference. It would also detract from the Democratic Party’s stated goal of transforming the US into an international and independent leader in the fight against global warming. There is no halfway in this problem, either imperialism is used to ensure access to renewable energy batteries or the US continues to falter in its environmental endeavors.
Kyle Whyte shows that this problem is indicative of the US’ unjustifiable treatment of indigenous Americans since the beginning of colonization.[3] He shows the dichotomy of issues like the Nez Perce-Perpetua conflict through tipping points. There is an indigenous relations tipping point and a climate tipping point. The climate tipping point is the more well-known of the two. It centers around reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century throughout the world which would prevent the world from going beyond the “tipping point” of two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. The indigenous tipping point refers to the disintegration of US-indigenous relations to a degree in which qualities like consent and trust between parties, vital to “kin relationships,” can no longer be formed. Whyte believes that the indigenous tipping point has already been crossed and that there is no way to ensure that neither tipping point is crossed.
The tipping points Whyte proposes are ideologically impossible to reconcile with a perception of the US based around EMT. Under EMT, market forces could guide the US into easing the side-effects of economic and environmental progress. This would result in US-indigenous relationships not suffering nearly to the degree they are at the moment. Whyte’s tipping points, however, establish an either/or dichotomy between ecological protection and consent-based interactions between the US and Native Americans. This contrasts EMT’s assertion that both can be worked on simultaneously. To Whyte, either the US prioritizes rebuilding alliances with Native Americans or it uses indigenous lands for the extraction of natural resources vital to fighting climate change in a bid to not cross the ecological tipping point. EMT cannot explain away this observable phenomena. Evidence of Whyte’s claims stretch across centuries into the modern conflict in Idaho. It is easy to see how Perpetua and the Nez Perce people are indicative of these opposing perceptions of progress.
Since 2016, the Nez Perce peoples have been in a fight against the actions of Perpetua. The Stibnite Gold Project was denounced by the Nez Perce officially in 2018, with protests erupting since then.[4] Although hundreds of millions of pounds of antimony generated in the Idaho mine could rejuvenate the US renewable energy battery industry and keep its supply chain domestic, would it offset the 100 million tons of toxic mine tailings and the destruction of salmon environments that would also come to pass? According to EMT, this catch-22 should not exist. Under EMT, nations should be able to engage in harm reduction while simultaneously pursuing “progress.” The US, in theory, should be able to mitigate the damage it inflicts on indigenous peoples while also creating a greener world. This is a fundamental flaw of EMT. If we strictly look at non-indigenous territories, EMT seems to be working well in the antimony mining industry. Mining antimony increases the US’ capacity for renewable electricity while also alleviating the social and health pressures put on communities that live close to major carbon polluters. The victims of this pollution are disproportionately urban communities of working-class people of color. Lowering the costs of renewable energy batteries can make solar energy more readily available. This would decrease reliance on coal and natural gas and take pressure off of communities living under co-pollution. These historically marginalized peoples would therefore benefit from EMT, not to mention the better welfare for nature as a whole. Society can progress to a point where it heals its own inequalities. This explanation, however, falls apart once we take into account the needs of the Nez Perce.
Why is EMT so ignorant of colonized people and their wellbeing? It excludes groups like the Nez Perce entirely from its theory. Yes, the US could profit both financially and socially from mining more antimony, but only if we all pretend as though the Nez Perce are a nonfactor. In order to learn why this EMT flaw exists, a literature review must be conducted. EMT’s origins could bring insight towards its limitations in modern-day environmental problems.
EMT has been tossed around as an idea since the 1980s. However, F.H. Buttel’s work with EMT in the late 1990s attempted to make sense of its role in environmental sociology, and his overview of the theory’s history will be significant to this literature review. His paper on the subject created an ideological backing to EMT showed how it is distinct as a framework.[5] Given how ubiquitous EMT has become in recent decades, Buttel’s analysis of its role in environmental sociology can show what role it plays in modern crises of politics and ecology, such as the use of Indigenous American lands for the sake of sustainable energy development.
Ecological Modernization Theory is, generally speaking, a framework of environmental sociology which states that Capitalism is capable of solving the problems it itself caused. These issues are often triggered by the industrialization of the natural world in pursuit of efficiency.[6] Buttel’s work uses a literature analysis of EMT’s predecessor theories to determine how it came to be and how this provocative ideology fits into other long-established theories such as the treadmill of production. The literature analysis method shows that EMT, as it was documented by Arthur P.J. Mol and Gert Spaargaren in the mid-1990s, shares many similarities with its forerunner pro-modernization ideologies. Ulrich Beck’s notion of “reflexive modernity,” for instance, works synergistically with EMT. Both theories posit that modernization, capitalism and neoliberalism are the solutions to the societal issues created by modernization itself.[7] Buttel, however, extends his analysis of EMT to cover more than just Beck’s work, as reflexive modernity generally works better with more radical applications of modernization than EMT. This leads to his review of Peter Evan’s idea of “embedded autonomy” which says that the state must work synergistically with social groups that try to enact change while also obeying the needs of nature and the market.[8] Evan’s combination of capitalism with progressive ideology makes his work valuable to Buttel, as it helps to contextualize how EMT is built on the backs of previous theories that posit that capitalism can fix the problems it causes. All in all, Beck and Evan’s sociological work on modernization shows that EMT is hardly the first theory to suggest that late-capitalism could be used for societal good. EMT simply adds the condition that this societal good can be focused on environmental efforts. Though, the literature analysis does constrain EMT into being focused mainly on the Global North in already industrialized nations. The theory works best to describe the incremental changes in this region that are done through neoliberal governance and capitalist market economics.
The bias admitted by Buttel of EMT towards the Global North is important to its application in environmental sociology. When EMT is generally applied, it is usually done in situations where capitalism can be viewed as the solution to ecological and social justice issues. It is a purposefully hopeful theory. Its hope comes from the lack of systemic change this ideology suggests is needed in order to improve the environmental conditions of people in the West. This can be seen in instances such as the use of market economics and sustainable development to supply water to cities in the Southwestern United States, which have suffered from nearly perpetual droughts in recent years.[9] With climate change and the social justice issues surrounding it gaining increasing political traction in the West, such an optimistic sociological perspective seems very appealing to the neoliberal establishment. EMT does not require revolution. It requires the current economic and political system of the West to be slightly altered and guided by legislation and citizen advocacy. Buttel’s analysis of EMT’s core beliefs and origins support this optimism, which helps to explain why it has grown popular in the moderate Biden Administration, though there are certainly major challenges to applying this framework to the current environmental issues being dealt with in the US.
The Biden Administration is dedicated to incremental and market-based solutions to solving issues related to climate change, the environmental issue of chief concern to the Democratic Party. We can see this through the administration’s major environmental successes: the Inflation Reduction Act and the re-signing of the US onto the Paris Climate Accord. This is EMT in action as the primary theoretical backing behind US ecological efforts. However, EMT does not always drive positive effects. Native Americans such as the Nez Perce are under threat of damage to their food and water sources at the hands of Antimony mining. However, these mining projects are approved because of the capitalist solutions to climate change that are integral to EMT. The Biden Administration seeks cheap, domestic sources of antimony, potentially even if those sources damage indigenous environments. EMT is fascinating in this perspective because it asks whose concerns really matter to a nation following EMT? Can EMT be applied in an egalitarian way, especially for marginalized communities? The answers to these are clouded by EMT’s blind optimism for a safer future.
The argument can be made that not only does this optimism cloud the future of the Nez Perce-Perpetua conflict, but it is the reason why the Nez Perce are constantly on the losing end of this fight. The tipping points discussed by Kyle Whyte are already in full effect. The IRA increased funding for PV batteries by 4% over the next decade.[10] Antimony is a major component of PV batteries, which are utilized primarily for storing energy derived from solar panels for long term use. The Biden Administration has already made its decision as to who it supports in the Nez Perce-Perpetua conflict. All that remains is for the official opening of the Stibnite Gold Project. If the current presidency and congress are issuing policies that support the mining of domestic antimony and raise funding for the products derived from the metal, then their support for Perpetua becomes obvious. The Nez Perce have constantly been backstabbed by the US much like indigenous groups through reservation shrinkages through the centuries. The opening of Stibnite would be damaging, but expected, for the Nez Perce.
EMT is a flawed lens to view this situation through because of the blind spot that it has towards the historical oppression of the Nez Perce. Any positive analysis of EMT in this case would have to ignore that there is a population of Americans living under threat of environmental colonization through the pollution of their food and water sources for the sake of sustainable development elsewhere in the nation. This is, however, not unique to the Nez Perce. EMT generally struggles with how to explain the follies of those being colonized. In the US alone, many Native American groups are grappling with clean energy mandates placing mines for precious metals closer and closer to their local ecologies.[11] It is easy to pretend as though market economics is the solution to fighting climate change and securing environmental justice. In practice, though, it means ignoring groups that historically have never been listened to in the first place. EMT is flawed because, in practice, it forces unethical decisions surrounding whose voices really matter. Perpetua and the US Government have decided that the Nez Perce peoples do not matter through the Stibnite Gold Project, the IRA and Executive Order 14017.
As of 2023, there is no official word on whether or not Perpetua’s Idaho gold mine will be going into production anytime soon. The mine is such a huge project that would last for decades if approved. Its pre-production phase has already lasted nearly seven years. It is true, however, that those seven years have been full of zero movement on the front of protection for Nez Perce sovereignty over their natural resources, food, and water. EMT has failed to account for Nez Perce perspectives in the Biden Administration’s policies that cooperate with the interest of Perpetua and similar corporations. Perhaps Kyle Whyte was correct when he stated that the US has passed the indigenous tipping point.[12] It would explain the lack of action to protect Nez Perce land after seven years of mining proposals near their lands. The US Government seems at least partially committed to fighting against climate change. The effectiveness of this effort to avoid the ecological tipping point is up for debate, however, there is no debate over whether or not this country is willing to defend indigenous populations in order to prevent a tipping point on their end.
[1] Perpetua Resources Corp, “Perpetua Resources Can Help Secure U.S. Production of Critical Mineral Antimony,” PR Newswire (Perpetua Resources Corporation, February 25, 2021), https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/perpetua-resources-can-help-secure-us-production-of-critical-mineral-antimony-301236006.html.
[2] Jack Healy and Mike Baker, “As Miners Chase Clean-Energy Minerals, Tribes Fear a Repeat of the Past,” The New York Times, December 27, 2021, sec. U.S., https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/us/mining-clean-energy-antimony-tribes.html.
[3] Kyle Whyte, “Too Late for Indigenous Climate Justice: Ecological and Relational Tipping Points,” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 11, no. 1 (October 23, 2019), https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.603.
[4] Teresa Cavazos Cohn et al., “Spatio-Temporality and Tribal Water Quality Governance in the United States,” Water 11, no. 1 (January 9, 2019): 99, https://doi.org/10.3390/w11010099.
[5] F.H. Buttel, “Ecological Modernization as Social Theory,” Geoforum 31, no. 1 (February 2000): 57, https://doi.org/10.1016/s0016-7185(99)00044-5.
[6] Ibid., 63.
[7] Ibid., 62.
[8] Ibid., 63.
[9] Jim Robbins, “A Quiet Revolution: Southwest Cities Learn to Thrive amid Drought,” Yale E360 (Yale School of the Environment, April 26, 2022), https://e360.yale.edu/features/a-quiet-revolution-southwest-cities-learn-to-thrive-amid-drought#:~:text=Major%20cities%20in%20the%20U.S.%20Southwest%20have%20so.
[10] John Weaver, “What’s in the Inflation Reduction Act for the Solar Industry?,” PV Magazine International (PV Magazine, August 15, 2022), https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/08/15/whats-in-the-inflation-reduction-act-for-the-solar-industry/.
[11] Jack Healy and Mike Baker, “As Miners Chase Clean-Energy Minerals, Tribes Fear a Repeat of the Past,” The New York Times, December 27, 2021, sec. U.S., https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/us/mining-clean-energy-antimony-tribes.html.
[12] Kyle Whyte, “Too Late for Indigenous Climate Justice: Ecological and Relational Tipping Points,” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 11, no. 1 (October 23, 2019), https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.603.
