This rare earth metal shows us the future of our planet’s resources



This rare earth metal shows us the future of our planet’s resources

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/08/21/1096469/neodymium-rare-earth-materials-supply-chain/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=tr_social&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement

by techreview

2 comments
  1. **From the article:**

    Leaving aside meteorites that strike Earth’s surface and spacecraft that get flung out of its orbit, the quantity of materials available on this planet isn’t really changing all that much.

    That simple fact of our finite resources becomes clearer and more daunting as the pace of technological change advances and our society requires an ever wider array of material inputs to sustain it. So for nearly as long as we’ve systematically extracted these substances, we’ve been trying to predict how long they will be able to meet our demand. How much can we pump from a well, or wrest from a mine, before we need to reconsider what we’re building and how? 

  2. I’m interested in how this constant flood of negative news affects people, esp young people. I’m not saying it’s not valid concerns, but what can Jane Doe in Michigan Detroit going to do to fix these problems?
    Planet is dying, global climate change, starvation, rising oceans, running out of resources. I can see people giving up and becoming numb.

Leave a Reply