Indonesia tests shows blood mercury rising at ground zero of world energy transition

Indonesia tests shows blood mercury rising at ground zero of world energy transition

MALUKU, Indonesia — Just four months after Mongabay reported on a dramatic surge in diagnoses of respiratory illness near Indonesia’s second-largest nickel industrial estate, new data indicate that up to half the local population may have been exposed to unsafe levels of mercury — and one in three to harmful arsenic. “This study is a serious warning of the long-term threat of heavy metal exposure, to both public health and environmental sustaina…