This article from Britain?s Daily Mail describes how the mining of neodymium China, the element needed to make the magnets in wind turbines, is making lakes toxic and ?killing farmers, their children, and their land.?? Apparently the mining of neodymium, which is being subsidized by western governments around the world trying to promote ?clean energy? with wind power subsidies, requires the disposal of massive amounts of toxic waste. Since neodymium is found and mined in the peasant farm regions of China, it is there that the damage is being done. This description from quoting one farmer paints a grim picture:

?At first it was just a hole in the ground,? he says. ?When it dried in the winter and summer, it turned into a black crust and children would play on it. Then one or two of them fell through and drowned in the sludge below. Since then, children have stayed away.? As more factories sprang up, the banks grew higher, the lake grew larger and the stench and fumes grew more overwhelming. ?It turned into a mountain that towered over us,? says Mr Su. ?Anything we planted just withered, then our animals started to sicken and die.? People too began to suffer. Dalahai villagers say their teeth began to fall out, their hair turned white at unusually young ages, and they suffered from severe skin and respiratory diseases. Children were born with soft bones and cancer rates rocketed. Official studies carried out five years ago in Dalahai village confirmed there were unusually high rates of cancer along with high rates of osteoporosis and skin and respiratory diseases. The lake?s radiation levels are ten times higher than in the surrounding countryside, the studies found.

I just don?t understand the self-centeredness of these Chinese farmers. Don?t they understand that they are sacrificing for a noble cause? After all, in 150 years these wind turbines may allow the earth to be as much a .5 degrees cooler than it would otherwise be. This is in addition to the fact that there?s a lot of people in New York and California who think har wind turbines are really neat to look at (unless of course they?re visible from their house).

As an aside, where is the environmental justice crowd on this?
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