The rush to ‘go electric’ comes with a hidden cost: destructive lithium mining | Thea Riofrancos

As the world moves towards electric cars and renewable grids, demand for lithium is wreaking havoc in northern ChileThe Atacama salt flat is a majestic, high-altitude expanse of gradations of white and grey, peppered with red lagoons and ringed by towering volcanoes. It took me a moment to get my bearings on my first visit, standing on this windswept plateau of 3,000 sq km (1,200 sq miles). A vertiginous drive had taken me and two other researchers through a sandstorm, a rainstorm, and the peaks