Working towards net-zero is not without its complications—especially when it comes to making sure history doesn’t repeat itself. Countless vulnerable communities bear the brunt of the worst consequences from big polluters in the fossil fuel industry. Everything from air to soil can be compromised from mining, drilling, refining, and more. Just as communities worry when major companies bring in such damaging practices for oil and gas, they’re also concerned about the tools needed for battery storage, electric vehicle production, and renewable energy generation. A recent Mother Jones feature encapsulates this struggle, highlighting the battle between copper mining company Resolution Copper and the Indigenous community of the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona.
Resolution Copper—which has a parent company, Rio Tinto, with a history of violating worker and Indigenous rights—plans to build a copper mine in an area around Superior that includes portions of Tonto National Forest, including the sacred Oak Flat site known to the San Carlos Apache tribe as Chi’chil Bildagoteel. The mesa is considered a blessed place that has been a site of worship and has held significance for the tribe since time immemorial. It’s also said to have enough copper to potentially meet a quarter of the United States’ renewables needs. Though the site has been protected as public land since 1955 and has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2016, Resolution Copper and other interested parties have worked to undermine those protections in a bid to start mining as soon as possible.