انگلیسی 1389

Capping the biggest mountains in south Odisha are some of the world's best deposits of Bauxite, the ore for aluminium mineral wealth to bring prosperity to one of India's poorest states. But for tribal people who have lived around them since history began, these mountains are sacred not a resource to be exploited, but a source of life itself, through the water they store, and release in perennial streams. So metal factories, built in tribal areas with a view to mining the mountain summits, are seen as a new colonial invasion, to be resisted. Thousands of Adivasis have already been displaced, in a process of cultural genocide, that involves notorious scams, and corrupts the values of civil society at the same time as wasting irreplaceable resources. Aluminium is a metal we take for granted in hundreds of artefacts. But what do we understand about its real costs? This book traces a hidden history, coming alive through hundreds of voices and stories, of how one country after another swallowed promises of prosperity, and plunged into a cycle of exploitation and unrepayable debt. What is the link between the massive meltdown of Iceland's banks, and the promotion of dams and smelters? Between the mafia-style looting of Russia's assets and the rise to power of a succession of aluminium barons? Why did the US set a limit during the 1950s-60s and start to outsource aluminium factories to other, poorer countries, such as Ghana, Guinea, Jamaica, India? The answer lies in hidden subsidies and prohibitive "externality costs". Making aluminium consumes vast quantities of water and electricity.