For me the title isn’t nearly as bad as the last paragraph which you even emphasized.

The truth of the matter is the shift to green technologies is going to damage the environment just as much as fossil fuels

Unless, they found fundamental new evidence, this claim is blatantly incorrect. Thus, I personally can’t see the linked article as a trustworthy source of information. Which is unfortunate because they may have a valid point regarding the situation in Tibet that deserves the public’s attention. But spreading misinformation in order to amplify your voice isn’t a good practice IMO.

I don’t object the observation ‘China destroys Tibet to produce EVs’. I object the conclusion that ‘EVs are as bad as ICEs for the environment’.

If you want to compare the two technologies in a fair way, it doesn’t make sense to only consider the single dimension ‘Impact on Tibet’.

As said, also ICEs involve a lot of mining activities elsewhere - for the fuel and also for the production (e.g. platinum for catalysts). And independent of mining, the CO2 exhaust destroys the planet as a whole. Although that relation isn’t as openly visible as in your example, it can still be significantly worse overall.

The truth of the matter is the shift to green technologies is going to damage the environment just as much as fossil fuels

As far as I know, there has been a lot of research on that and that is simply not true. Obviously, producing any new stuff is never good for the environment in the first place. Producing no car is better than producing an electric one. But if I remember correctly, the overall footprint of an electric car outpaces one with a combustion engine after less than 50,000 kilometers (30,000 miles).

Also fuel includes mining activities which also aren’t exactly good for the environment. And as your article is mainly about lithium: we already now see the first cars with sodium-based batteries entering the market.

I guess that might be the end of Porsche then. I guess there’ll still be a niche market for combustion engine cars for the next few decades. But I think it will shrink quickly and especially in case of Porsche there are loads of well-maintained used cars and oldtimers that completely fill that gap.

But how is that an unresolveable problem?

Energy density of batteries is getting higher while prices are shrinking year by year. You can of course question if makes sense to keep throwing more and more batteries at a car with the size of a yacht instead of building a more efficient vehicle. But it’s not unresolveable.

The unresolveable part from my perspective is the underlying physics: more weight, big tires (at slow speeds) and poor aerodynamics (at higher speeds) increase consumption. And that problem was there all the time.

But were these problems ever solved for non EVs? I mean the bigger and less aerodynamic the car, the more energy it takes to move it. That’s simple physics no matter what technology you’re using. That’s why IMHO SUVs and trucks are a pretty bad choice for an everyday vehicle.