Hosted by the Kirwan Institute for the Center on Race and Ethnicity, this virtual talk is cosponsored by CURA. Drs. Chris Benner and Manuel Pastor will talk about their new book, Charging Forward: Lithium Valley, Electric Vehicles, and a Just Future. The volume starts and ends in the Salton Sea region of Southern California, a place that has been considered an environmental disaster zone, a site of labor exploitation, and a problematic example of grinding poverty and racial exclusion. But while it has long been on the periphery, it is now a new center of political and economic attention – because it is sitting on enough lithium to electrify the entire US auto fleet and have 100 million batteries left over!

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