EVENTS

Date: THU 16^th of May, 11.30 – 13.00 CEST
Panel 1 – 11.30 – 12.15:
“The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) and practical challenges”
Panel 2 – 12.15 – 13.00
“Geology – engineering – social sciences interaction & research’s societal impact”

Date: FRI 17^th of May, 13.30 – 15.00 CEST
Panel 1 – 13.30 – 14.30
“Indigenous perspectives on broader political and local societal issues”
Panel 2 – 14.30 – 15.00
“Let’s keep on talking across stakeholders and society”

Please Note: The sessions will be video recorded and made available on YouTube and the BhA website.

The project Beyond Hot Air is a conversation. It is an international, transdisciplinary multi-stakeholder initiative that explores the complex landscape of critical raw materials (CRM) supply for the ‘green’ transition. The project is based at the University of Vienna, AT and associated to/funded by the Canadian research network MinErAL. 
This workshop will bring together scholars from natural and social sciences, civil society actors, experts, Indigenous rights holders as well as political and corporate stakeholders to exchange knowledge and experiences of challenges and successful practices to enable more sustainable and socially accepted decision-making around mining for critical raw materials to advance the energy transition to be both ‘green’ and ‘just’. 
We will focus on the complex relationship between mining and the energy transition. Combating climate change requires that all of us around the globe step out of our comfort zones – considering the full impact of mining for CRM on local communities and on the environment. We seek to dig deep to expose the dissonances, injustices and potential synergies in current debates, challenging the status quo.
Four sessions of the workshop are open to the public online and we look forward to your active participation in the conversation. 

Co-organized with the Austrian Polar Research Institute (APRI) and the Museum of Natural History Vienna (NHM)

Date: WED 15^th of May 2024, 18.30 – 22.00 CEST
Venue: Museum of Natural History (NHM), Burgring 7, 1010 Vienna
Welcome: Kathrin Vohland, Director of the Museum of Natural History & Ulrich Brand, Head of the Department of Political Science, Uni Vienna
Speakers: Eva Fjellheim, Arctic University of Norway/Tromsø (UiT) & Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna, AUT – Ellen Marie Jensen, Austrian Polar Research Institute – Thierry Rodon, Université Laval, CAN
Hosts: Simon Batterbury, University of Melbourne AUS & Lancaster University, UK – Gertrude Saxinger, Austrian Polar Research Institute APRI & University of Vienna

For further info see:
Polar Talk #13 at APRI (Co-Organiser)
Polar Talk #13 at NHM (Co-Organiser & Location)

The implementation of the energy transition, the European Green Deal policy and the efforts of society in Europe to make the economy and people’s lifestyles ‘greener’ require renewable energies. For electric vehicles, wind turbines or digital devices etc., more and more critical raw materials such as lithium, cobalt, copper, rare earths etc. are needed. Many of these deposits and large-scale wind farms are located in the Arctic and sub-Arctic, which is also home to Indigenous Peoples.
The speakers are Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers with deep knowledge of how Indigenous Peoples in Canada and Sápmi deal with corporate and political pressure and the legal conditions for industry and state intrusion into their lands. Polar Talk #13 will illustrate the power of Indigenous groups and their claims to self-determination, how some communities benefit from mining as well as the double standards of a society that wants to ‘go green’ at the expense of violating Indigenous rights and jeopardising peoples‘ cultural existence.

Speakers: Pamela Lesser, social scientist at University of Lapland (FI) and Frank Melcher, economic geologist at Montanuniversität Leoben (AT)
Chair: Marlene Auer, University of Vienna (AT) & Austrian Polar Research Institute APRI
Date: FRI 12^th of April 2024, 12.00 – 13.00 CEST
To receive the zoom link, please register here.

Please note: The meeting will be video recorded and made available to the public on YouTube and the BhA website.

There is an elephant in the room: as we increase our consumption of critical raw materials (CRM), their availability becomes increasingly limited. We face unresolved issues regarding an often lacking social licence to operate (SLO) in mining regions. Furthermore, mining in Europe is not much discussed by national policy makers, nor are lay consumers very aware of where the CRMs that are crucial for a ‘green’ energy transition come from. The two speakers, with backgrounds in social science and economic geology respectively, will discuss the practicalities of mining CRM in Europe and the social, political and geological dimension of why these raw materials are considered ‘critical’. In this webinar we aim to highlight double standards in times of ‘going green’