Transcript: What a New Chilean Constitution Would Mean For Mining

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In theory, a big shift towards renewable sources of energy (like wind and solar and electric vehicles) mean less money and power for Russia, and the OPEC nations. But new forms of energy also require resource extraction. And we've already seen growing tension in places that have abundant copper and lithium deposits. So what are the new politics of extraction? On this episode of the podcast we speak with microbiologist Cristina Dorador who, among other things, has been a contributor to a proposed new Chilean constitution that will be put to a referendum later this year. The constitution seeks to enshrine certain restrictions and rights that may make mining more difficult or costlier than it has been in the past. And whether the constitutional reforms pass or not, it's representative of a growing backlash in many places to the way mining rights were handled in the past. Transcripts have been lightly edited for clarity. 

Points of interest in the pod:
Understanding the unique ecology of Chile — 5:12
The environmental cost of copper mining — 6:10)
How the mining industry is perceived domestically — 14:10
How did Chile end up with a privatized water market? — 18:57
Who pays for decarbonization? — 26:11
Can technology save us from tough decisions? — 31:12
Will Chile’s new constitution be approved? — 33:46

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Joe Weisenthal: (00:10)
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway: (00:15)
And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe: (00:16)
Tracy, one of the themes that comes up on a lot of episodes is that, you know, there's going to be a lot of demand for various metals and various minerals in the so-called energy transition in order to electrify the economy. But that process itself is fraught with its own environmental consequences and risk.

Tracy: (00:40)
So this is the ultimate irony of, I guess, the green revolution. In order to save the world and bring down emissions, we have to move to new types of energy electrification, a lot of which requires certain types of minerals and metals and getting those is actually environmentally destructive in many ways.

Joe: (01:01)
So we recently had a conversation, for example, with Nick Snowdon of Goldman Sachs. And of course over the long term, he's extremely bullish on copper. But as he noted one of the reasons for his super bullish copper call is that there just is not as much mining activity. And he pointed out how around the world, it's not just rich countries, there's been much more concern being raised about the environmental consequences of mining, the water consumption that happens in copper mining specifically. And he noted that Chile, which many people know is one of the biggest sources of copper in the world, it's become a much more difficult place to get a new mine built.

Tracy: (01:47)
So even if there is theoretically enough copper in the ground to satisfy the world's demands for electrification, it's becoming harder and more challenging to get it out because there are these additional environmental concerns. And in Chile in particular, they're even writing some of these environmental concerns into their new constitution, which is very different to the types of constitutional writing that we've seen historically.

Joe: (02:14)
Yeah. And so copper of course, lithium is another big one for batteries, and there’s lots of similar environmental issues raised. And so rather than just, you know, talking about, ‘Yes, there are all these environmental issues that have to be addressed,’ we should probably talk more about what they are. What the opposition is. What are the concerns, why are politics changing and how do we resolve or think about resolving some of these tensions?

Tracy: (02:45)
Absolutely. And I'm also very interested in this from an ESG perspective. Because one of the fundamental questions over ESG has always been, should you let the market decide this, or should the government actually be making these restrictions? And Chile is really an interesting example of all of this.

Joe: (03:03)
Well we have the perfect guest for this episode. We are gonna be speaking with Dr. Cristina Dorador. She is a microbiologist from Chile and she is a former member of the constitutional assembly of Chile. It just recently — just a few days ago, we’re recording this July 8th, but on July 4th, this new proposed a constitution that codifies some of these environmental protections was put forward. It's gonna be voted on later in the year, but she was involved in drafting this new proposed constitution and for the first time, which really gets at some of these tensions between mining and protecting the environment right into the constitution itself. So Dr. Dorador, thank you so much for coming on Odd Lots.

Cristina Dorador: (03:52)
Oh, thanks to you for the invitation.

Joe: (03:54)
So why don't you just give us a little bit of your background and bio. I mentioned that you're a microbiologist. I mentioned that you've been part of this new constitutional assembly in Chile, but where does your interest in this space and work in this space come from?

Cristina: (04:12)
I did my undergrad in biology. Then I did my PhD in Germany where I focused on the study of my micro organisms in extreme environments. So then I come back to Chile to analyze the microorganisms that live in the desert, the Atacama Desert, and also in other places, such as salares. They are very special ecosystems of evaporated lakes that now are the source for lithium. So I'm working in this subject since more than 20 years ago. So we have a lot of experience about ecology and also the microorganisms that are living there.

Tracy: (04:52)
So you mentioned the unique ecosystem of Chile. Could you maybe give us a little bit more color on that? What exactly is it about the geography of Chile that makes it so important to things like copper and lithium mining?

Cristina: (05:09)
Sure. Well, Chile is a land of extremes, you know, in the north of Chile, we have the driest desert in the world. The Atacama desert in the south, in Patagonia. But specifically in the Atacama Desert, there is a high concentration of minerals and also high diversity. So it's possible to find almost the whole periodic table here and also it’s in large reserves. And in the special case of the water, because it's an arid desert, of course, water is coming from under the ground, and also the fresh water is coming from rain during the summer. And it's located in these special lakes that are called salares, that I already mentioned, and a couple of rivers. So the water is very scarce, and actually for all the mining — the big mining producers in Chile — are using the scarce water from the desert, so that’s the paradox.

Joe: (06:07)
So that's something that came up on a recent episode. And we were talking to the chief metal strategist at Goldman Sachs, and he mentioned, you know, he said, ‘copper mining has generally improved its environmental sustainability,” but for one thing, there is a huge water need in copper mining. Can you talk a little bit about from your perspective, what you see as the big environmental cost that the people of Chile pay for being such a big source of copper mining?

Cristina: (06:50)
Yeah, well, look, copper mining exploitation has been happening here for, I don't know, over a hundred years. And so it's a long story. And during all this time, the water used for this processes has been obtained locally. So that means from underground water and also the Loa river, that is the only river that we have here in the Antofagasta region.

And the large private copper mines, from the nineties, started private mining. They have been used water from salares. So there are many cases of these big miners having dried out whole ecosystems, extracting the water for more than 20, 25 years, day and night. So that is a massive environmental damage.

And also, it is not only the environmental damage, it is also social. Because they have practices that people were not used to, you know, to dealing with. And so it's very complex. But now copper mining is starting to use the water from the sea, either direct sea water or through desalinization plants, but also of course everything has an effect. The main problem, I think here is the magnitude, because the magnitude of processing this copper is immense. It’s so big that people can see these holes from space, you know? So that means also a equivalent amount of water that has to be used.

Tracy: (08:30)
So my understanding is that a lot of water is also used in lithium mining. Could you maybe describe that process as well, and also tell us what your own research says about quantifying the economic damage from these types of processes?

Cristina: (08:47)
Yeah. In the case of lithium, lithium is concentrated here in this evaporitic basins called salares. They were in the past large lakes that through time have been dried out. And the industry, what they they do is they pump out the brines that are actually water full of salts, or concentrated salts. And between the salts are lithium. And they evaporate the water. So this is a water mining.

So it's not a mining from rocks, it's from the water. So they have to be free of the water, so evaporate the water and then concentrate the lithium. In a very arid place, it produces major effects. So we have a study through using satellite images and also other parameters, the Salar de Atacama, where the main extraction is right now, has been affected in different ways. For example, there is less water in general, but also the population of flamingos have migrated from here. So in the last 10 years, the population of endemic flamingo have been decreasing.

Joe: (10:15)
Your scientific background is microbiology. Can you talk a little bit further about the microbiology of the region? And I mean, this is going to sound crass, but I don't mean it in a crass way at all. But I guess the question is why should people care more about this? In theory, I get why people worry about the loss of wildlife, the loss of biological diversity and so forth. But how do you, especially like, even in the drafting of the constitution, how do you express the risks involved from damaging some of these ecosystems?

Cristina: (10:55)
Well, it's very complicated because first, all these ecosystems I'm talking about -- Atacama Desert and the salares — for a long time people have been thinking that there was no life there because if you see picture of the Atacama, there it is nothing. You cannot see any plants. But the life that is there is microbial. So if we take any sample from this dry soil of salt or whatever, we can find bacteria and microorganisms living there. And they're very important part of trophic web. So flamingos, for example, that are in this region and others, they eat sediments and these sediments are full of bacteria. And they’re also being used as a source of energy and pigments and whatever that are important for the life. So everything is related. And that's why they're very fragile, because when the system changes at a microbial level it also affects at major levels.

So the impacts are even bigger. So that has been very complicated to explain this because it's different, there is another sensibility when environmentalist for example, they claim to protect a native forest or Patagonia, you know, it's visible life there. And also the landscapes are amazing. So people really feel touchy about that. But when you talk about protecting the desert, it's like what? The desert is there to be exploited. More than a hundred years ago, it has been source of resources for Chile always. So nobody really talks about protection of the desert.

It's sometimes uncomfortable because the environment is not seen as something important for a long time, about mining. So we have to put that information on the table for discussion in the assembly. And we reach, I think, very important optics. First we declared that nature has rights. And this is a major advance because change or ethics regarding ecology. So we recognize ourself as a human, as part of an ecosystem and that also means that we need, as humans, of course we have the responsibility to take care of the nature regarding certain regulations. So yeah, it's a very interesting challenge.

Tracy: (13:32)
How do people in Chile feel about the mining industry? And I realize it's difficult to generalize and probably your opinion will be informed by how close you are to any mining operations. But my understanding is that it brings a lot of money into the country, but that money is not necessarily well-distributed among the population. And that economic inequality is one of the reasons why the country embarked on this new constitution process in the first place — there were big protests in 2019. So how do people feel, you know, broadly about the industry?

Cristina: (14:10)
Well, in general the feeling that the economic system that Chile has mostly based on destruction of raw materials, minerals or forest or something, whatever, is not really helping people because of the political system that we have — a legacy from the constitution of the 1980s. So that's why it was so important to change this constitution. First to guarantee social rights. So now we advance from a subsidiary state to one based on democracy and social rights. And regarding mining. So I'm coming from Antafogasta. This is the biggest region of mining, as I was saying, in Chile and probably in the world for copper. And my family's from here. So we have a long history in this territory and the feeling of the people is that, of course, it's important. Mining. It give a lot of jobs, but it hasn’t really improved life here.

So for example, we still don't have a good railways or good transportation system, whatever, the basic things for living in a place. All the money goes to Santiago. And especially the three, we say communes, the most rich ones. And from there, they distribute the money back to the territories. So that is very unfair. That's why one of the most important advances is the new proposal of constitution is that the state creates a new political and regional system, it’s called  called estado regionale, a regional states, where every region has autonomy. And that's very important because we will take our own decision. And also we will have our own money. We don't have to depend anymore on the decision of Santiago. So that's is a major advance. And probably also that we will have consequences at, you know, environmental or other levels.

Tracy: (16:14)
So you mentioned enshrining the rights of nature in the constitution. And again, this, this is the first time that this has really been done to my knowledge, on a constitutional basis. But how far does the draft that was released this week actually go? Is it a complete ban on mining or something less than that?

Cristina: (16:36)
Nothing changed really in the short term. The important thing is that, for example, for water, here water has been privatized. So now we demand in the constitution that all these proprietary rights are conveyed into authorization. So before people can freely obtain these property rights and have them for forever, you know, for perpetuity. So now, we'll be focused on the humans, on people instead of the different other uses, because we also, write in this proposal, the human right for water. That was not guaranteed. In Chile there were people that don't have access to water at all, but next to the population are companies using the water, you know, and the state doesn’t focus on people. So these kind of inequalities we have already.

So that's why it's so important to advance in this recognition of nature rights. So it's not only just that, also there is a whole very robust body of articles that will help to put that in, you know, in movement, all these rights. Especially the creation of the, we call it defence of the environment. So people, they are represent their demands or the requirements about nature protection. And of course the environmental standards either for mining or for other activities will increase. But that is, I wanted to say, that that is not something bad, it's something necessary, right? We, our country, will be one of the most affected by climate change. So we need to also take care about our future. I know copper and lithium is very important now for EV cars and everything, but also we need to take care about our own land, you know, and some this is the opportunity that we have. You know, to write our constitution, and say that we want for the future for people.

Tracy: (18:57)
I want to ask more about what the constitution actually does and how you see it working. But before we do, you mentioned the water system in Chile, and my understanding is that it's the only country in the world with a fully privatized water market. Can you explain how that came to be?

Cristina: (19:17)
Well, this was a whole ideological plan, prepared during the dictatorship of Pinochet. So the constitution of the 1980s was written in a way that, to think about the state needs to have less power and also very important elements like the water and oil were privatized, because in their ideology, they think that this is the best way to manage a country. But now after more than 40 years, we know that this is not the way for us. That's why there was all this [social unrest] in 2019, and it's not really working. You know, all the systems produce a large inequality in the country that is immense and not only regarding money or access to consuming. It's also cultural, gender-based, depends where you live. Everything. So it's impossible to maintain a social equilibrium or social peace like that. That's why it's so important to change the constitution. And with this in mind, for example, the water code was created in 1981. And in 1982 already, the big miners were already obtaining the water rights in the 90s. So there was a whole preparation to produce large amounts of copper in after the dictatorship.

Joe: (21:05)
So the last time we talked about this, our guest said that already Chile has become a much harder place to launch a new copper mine. So even setting aside the new constitution and whether it passes in a national referendum, that in 2022 it's significant more difficult to get started on a new mining project than it was 20 years ago, in the early 2000s, when we had the last sort of commodity supercycle and there was tons of demand from China for copper and other minerals and it sent prices soaring. Can you talk a little bit about what's happened and what's changed over the last several years, such that — politics has changed, mining permitting has changed and, I guess, just general awareness of environmental consequences has become more top of mind.

Cristina: (22:02)
Well I’m not really in agreement with that because we just try to be fair. You know, for one way, the economical point of view usually does not include the environmental damage. We don't know, for example, the amount of money that have been maybe paid by the state to solve problems related to big mining, because as it’s not in the equation also. Also what’s not in the equation is the social [effects], for example, the work that is not paid well because women have the task of care, that thanks to that, men especially can work in the mines. That's not included in this equation. So probably we are not really seeing the whole picture. That's why we just demand more control —  that people can also be part of the decision.

Because also the constitution includes that method of direct democracy and more participation in the decision that affects their own lives. It's more democracy. And that is, that is a very good news for the world, because, also for the mining, if they do well … they will have a higher consideration at local level. Because also for some people, they are bad neighbors, you know? So it's just important to think about this point of view.

Joe: (23:43)
So would you say that as of right now, like the current status quo, that there just hasn't been much change in that extractive industries, whether we're talking copper, lithium, other minerals that companies want to mine, the status quo right now is still pretty liberal in terms of what they’re able to do?

Cristina: (24:07)
Yeah. It is pretty liberal. Of course there is environmental regulation, but they're not as strong as they should be, I think. For example, just a very short example here in Atacama, there is a case of a gold mine that was actually [written about] everywhere in the world, it was in the National Geographic magazine where to start to dig the mining, they needed to move a whole colony of chinchillas. That is an animal...

Tracy: (24:36)
Oh, chinchillas are very cute...

Cristina: (24:39)
Exactly, that as well. And they propose a plan to move the chinchillas from this mountain and to move them to another one. And of course, during the transportation they die. And that's not good mining. It's complicated, but I think we need to face these problems in a wider way. We need to talk about it. Not just everything has to be, you know, surrounded by market. We need to also think about the future. We cannot do the same thing forever because we have limits. The planet has limits. And if we put instead the climate change, it’s even worse. And so that's why it's so important to include different ways and include diversity. People that think differently in these big dialogues, otherwise nothing will happen. It will be worse at the end of the day.

Tracy: (25:29)
So on the topic of paradoxes and looking at the planet as a whole, and I want to make it really clear that this is a devil's advocate question before I ask it. But what do you say to people who will look at the situation in Chile, and they will say, ‘well, we need that copper. And we need that lithium so that we can shift to cleaner and greener technologies on a global basis. We need electric cars. We need more electricity in general in order to reduce emissions and save the entire planet. And what if it is necessary to sacrifice a desert in Chile in order to save the planet more broadly?’ What would you say to those people?

Cristina: (26:11)
I think we need more elements in the conversation. First, I think we are all agreed that we need to decrease emissions. This is something crucial, but the countries that produce more carbon dioxide, they're really doing their best? You know? They're really decreasing the amount of carbon that they produce? Because Chile, we are a very small country compared to others. We don't produce much carbon. We produce very little compared to China or the US, but we have the copper and the lithium. So, and also the question is, of course it's important to transition for electricity, but really will that change our destiny of global warming. That's the one question that we have to solve. You know, I think we need more research about that and open research.

Our research will include other views, not just, you know, a way of replacement. And what we do is a replacement of things. We replace cars based on carbon to cars based on electricity, but it's still cars. And there’s not also any incentive to decrease the number of cars. It's the opposite. So I think that the conversations have to be more honest, it's not just ‘we sacrifice ecosystem for the good of the planet,’ because I'm not sure it’s like that at the end, if we put all together.

Joe: (28:08)
So the current status quo seems to be, you have a few extremely rich countries, or very big countries in the case of China, that produce a massive amount of emissions. And then there are, you know, mining and it's in smaller countries, as you mentioned Chile is not a very big contributor to emissions or global warming, directly. And so the rich countries in the world want to electrify and need, or want the minerals and metals of poorer countries. Do you work with activists and scientists and politicians in other countries as well to think about a sort of global response to this? And more broadly, why do you think it's happening now? Because my impression is that it's not just in Chile where people are sort of becoming more aware, and waking up to some of the costs associated with industrial scale mining.

Cristina: (29:07)
Sure, sure. You know, science and knowledge is a collective work, right? My case also have been a personal way, personal role because I'm from a very specific discipline — that is microbiology. And because I'm working in salares, so every time I've been there working, you know, to study the biochemical mechanism for bacteria for adaptation to extreme condition, we went there and we noticed the lake that we are working. I say that it's also having a personal role. You know, me as a microbiologist scientist working in a very specific mechanism to understand the biology of microbes. Then we worked in salares, working and every time we were there, we realized that it was something different. So the places that we used to work [in], that doesn't exist anymore, that was completely dried out, for example.

So at some point we face that personally. So, okay. It's very important, the science. It’s very important to write papers, to know, you know, to be in the system, but what we as a human, as a person living here, we can protect this ecosystem because we know that is so important. They have a high value diversity, they're probably, in term of biologic components, it’s a source of new medicine for the world. But the use that now exists in this ecosystem is the destruction, because lithium extraction is the destruction, it means the destruction of the salares. There's no other way until now. And that's why I start to talk with other people with other countries, with other disciplines. I start to also create a network of people from anthropology, who also works in [the] economy. And we are discussing this. And I realized that was not crazy to think that, you know, there could be another way and other possibilities, and that we are trying to work now.

Tracy: (31:12)
Can technology save us from having to make some of these hard decisions? I feel like that that's what people are often hoping for, right? That there will be more efficient ways to use water when it comes to copper or lithium mining, and it won't have as big an environmental impact, and we can keep doing it while electrifying the planet. Is that a possibility?

Cristina: (31:34)
Yeah. Technology is important. Science is very important. Chile, especially is a country that invests very, very few in science and technology. That's why it's something that we put a lot of attention [on] in the new constitution. We declare the rights of knowledge, and we hope, I really hope that that would produce more alternatives, and also more technology. But there is no one solution for this. You know, that’s very, very complex. And we also, we have to face this complexity and to face complexity, we need to include more people in the discussions.

Joe: (32:12)
So July 4th, the new constitution was unveiled. What is the process now just for our listeners, there's gonna be a referendum later this year? What happens between now and then, and how does this work?

Cristina: (32:26)
Yeah, yeah. There will be referendum for September the 4th, in two months, more or less. Now we’ve already started the campaigns about the two decisions, there’s approve or reject. And the proposal that we did … [If it’s rejected] we will stay as we are, without changes, but also it's a complicated situation because we will not give any response to the social demands of people, right? So probably that will produce a time of political instability in the country. And if we win the approval, we need to also, I mean, as a country, we need to work on install[ing] what the constitution says. That of course would be a long term process, it will probably would take years to do that. But I think it's very necessary, considering that we need to advance in wellness for the people, and also to face this big challenge that we have as a small country that also will be very affected by climate change,

Tracy: (33:42)
Do you think the new constitution will be approved?

Cristina: (33:46)
Yeah, I think so. It's complicated. There is a lot of fake news around it. Mass media are not really helping, but I think people, it’s very interesting and they're really looking for changes. So yeah. Now we have to work a lot for that.

Tracy: (34:04)
How exportable do you think some of the principles enshrined in this new constitution would be to other countries and, you know, I've seen it described, well, in all types of language, I think The Economist called it a “fiscally irresponsible left-wing wish list,” which seems quite harsh. I've seen people call it a ‘woke’ constitution. I've seen other people just say it's more progressive in the sense that it pays attention to what people in Chile actually care about, which, you know, is gender and economic equality and environmental concerns as you've been laying out. Do you think the principles or just the idea of some of these principles could be used in other countries?

Cristina: (34:46)
Well, during the dictatorship, Chile also lived I think one of the biggest experiments in the world. You know, we were the experiment for the neoliberalism, and these are the consequences. So, and now this is a hope for people. Hope to live, to have a good life. I have the experience of living in Europe, for example, and it is something, you know, normal that someone has, right? To go to the hospital and have good quality attention, or the kids can go to the school and they will be accepted, not because of the amount of money that they will have. So that basic things as a human rights, that's what we are looking for here. And I think the analysts sometimes, especially when they look at South America, they really reduce the complexity of politics to left or right.

Here we are facing big change challenges. What is climate change? It’s left or right. It's different, it's different. So I think that's also, we need to do a more deep [dive] to try to understand what's going on in other countries, think a little bit outside the box of the market. Think a little bit about the diversity, the contribution of the diversity and also the future. And that is one of the things that Chile can contribute, especially for example, I will mention, this is the first time that we include native, you know, indigenous people in this conversation. And that also produce, for example, we push an area called systemic justice, or knowledge justice. So we have to respect what they think, and also what they know, that's why in our constitution, regarding the right for science, we call right for knowledge. So it is the first time, and it’s also a recommendation from UNESCO, that we recognize the knowledge as a whole. So I mean, science, technology, but also art, humanities, local knowledge and indigenous knowledge. And that I think is a very important starting point to deal with these complex problems that we are dealing right now. And of course we will deal in the future.

Joe: (37:22)
Dr. Dorador. Thank you so much for coming on, we've been needing this perspective in the conversation for a while, and really appreciate you laying it out and talking about the work that you've done on the new constitution and the rethinking of the costs of mining. Appreciate you coming on Odd Lots!

Cristina: (37:42)
Okay. Thank you very much again. I hope, the ideas were understandable, because this is not easy in another language, but thank you very much for covering this. I think it's important.

Tracy: (37:55)
Thanks, Cristina.

Joe: (37:56)
Tracy. I thought that was a really good conversation. And I think that, you know, whether you think, oh, electrification and decarbonization should be prioritized, whether you think, you know, wherever you weight these various issues, this tension is very real. And I don't know whether the new Chilean constitution is going to pass or not in September, but I don't think that this sort of growing awareness and maybe backlash towards some of the environmental cost of mining is something that's going to diminish anytime soon.

Tracy: (38:45)
No, it feels like the tension is kind of inescapable at this point. I did think Cristina's point about electric cars and the transition there, this is something that came up before, although I can't remember who, but this idea that even if Western countries shift to completely electrified modes of transport, it doesn't mean that suddenly the whole planet is saved because a lot of those old vehicles just go to emerging markets and continue spewing emissions. So I think what she's getting at is the need for a holistic planet-wide plan. And then when I say that, I just feel very, very sad because it feels like that is so far off and it is really hard to sort of balance individual interest versus the whole.

Joe: (39:32)
Yeah. And you know, the other thing is like, look, I think it's not very hard to get corporate interests in wealthy countries, or even the public necessarily, behind the idea of decarbonization. People like electric cars, even for non environmental reasons. And so if it's just about moving from gas to electricity, that's pretty popular. Any time, the conversation shifts towards consuming less, fewer cars, less consumption overall. Then I think, from a sort of political standpoint, from a market standpoint, from a public and rich country standpoint, those solutions almost seem completely off the table and unacceptable. So the idea of what about having fewer cars? What about making cars more sustainable so that they don't need to be replaced all the time? That's when I think the conversation, the rubber really meets the road and you have real tension, but I think, look, if there's going to be a major slowdown, as she said, the new constitution doesn't propose a ban on mining. But if you're going to change the way, how water rights are allocated, if you're going to change the way, who can be involved in the permitting process, it's going to slow down the trajectory of new mining, I would suspect, at a minimum. And then you get like this real situation where like, okay, at any given moment there's less available and people don't like it. The politics of consuming less are really tough.

Tracy: (40:58)
Yeah. I think that's right. And economics, by the way, is not well equipped for a world where you're telling people that they basically just have to consume less. Like the whole thing is about growing, growing, and consuming more. Alright, well, should we leave it there?

Joe: (41:20)
Let's leave it there.

You can follow Cristina Dorador on Twitter at @criordo.