In 2030, we as individuals, companies, countries, continents and the planet will demonstrate that we have actively worked towards the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. As a former technology optimist, I was convinced that digitalization was an important path to a greener future.
So wrong you can be.
We are in a time where climate and sustainability are once again getting more focus, there are not many years until 2030. People understand that we cannot continue to consume the planet as we do today. Unfortunately, this does not apply to the technology industry. We see a problem but solve it by creating a new problem. The green shift is a good example. In our eagerness to replace fossil fuels with renewable technology, we have overlooked brutal facts: Our modern life rests on a foundation of shattered mountains, destroyed rainforests, poisoned rivers and millions of human destinies.
Every year we excavate enormous quantities of minerals and metals. The scale is hard to fathom. We are talking about irreparable damage, annually removing mass close to the equivalent to the weight and volume of Mount Everest. These holes in the earth’s crust are not just aesthetic scars – they are a disaster for the environment and the people who live there.
The Environmental Death Machine
When we blast our way into the depths to extract lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper, we set off a chain reaction of destruction. Mineral extraction requires enormous amounts of water, often in areas already suffering from drought.
• Poisoning: Chemicals used in the extraction process leach into groundwater.
• Collapsed ecosystems: Entire mountain ranges and forests are removed to make way for open-pit mining.
• The perspective of eternity: A hole in the earth’s crust never heals. We leave behind a landscape that is permanently altered, where biodiversity is sacrificed on the altar of technological growth.
Consequences for people
It is rarely those of us who benefit from the minerals who must live with the consequences. It is indigenous and local populations in the global south – and increasingly in the north – who see their livelihoods disappear. In Congo, children dig for cobalt for our smartphones. In South America, salt flats are drained of water to produce electric car batteries. We export the environmental impact to vulnerable areas, while we pat ourselves on the back for buying “renewable and emission-free” products.
Repparfjorden: A national betrayal and a disgrace for Norway
We don’t have to look far to find examples of this predatory behaviour. Repparfjorden in Finnmark stands as a glaring example of Norwegian double standards. Here, the authorities have given permission to Nussir, they can dump millions of tons of mining waste straight into a national salmon fjord. It will kill a productive fjord in the same way we are doing with Førdefjorden. And in Oslo, we celebrate the green shift.
This is not just an environmental risk; it is a direct attack on Sami rights and reindeer herding in the area. By prioritizing short-term profits from copper mining over eternal natural resources and indigenous culture, Norway is showing that we are willing to sacrifice our own natural heritage to fill the world’s hunger for metals
A Book for everybody to read.
The Way Forward
We cannot continue to dig our way out of an environmental crisis. If we continue to consume minerals at the current rate, we will leave behind a planet that is perforated and exhausted.
The green transition must be about more than switching energy sources; it must be about reducing the total resource extraction.
We must move from a linear “dig-and-throw” economy to a truly circular economy where we reuse the metals we have already extracted. Otherwise, the story of our generation will be the story of how we killed the planet to save it. One Mount Everest-sized hole at a time.