And poison air. I actually worked on an air quality project near a mining site. The consequences are awful. These communities become ghost towns once the site is “dried up” and jobs are no longer viable, except for the few very poor who cannot leave the area who continue to get poisoned from the site. The number of jobs can also be overblown because a lot of mining has become automated as well.

The answer should be less consumption, and more recycling/fixing/reuse of materials. It’s really easy to make bold claims on Reddit, but a mine in your backyard is not generally something most people would want. The people who profit of it are not going to live in the community that was destroyed either.