This Rare Earth: Building the Dams, Mines and Megaprojects that Run our World

This Rare Earth is a graphic account of twenty-five years working for some of the largest mining  and engineering companies in the world. Much of this work was conducted in in conflict zones where Jeremy Gilmer supervised the construction of dams, mine tailings structures, and oil and gas facilities. Through personal stories and detailed observations, he brings to life the daily realities of those caught in the crossfire of progress—miners, villagers, and local leaders who grapple with the promises and perils of development.

Gilmer describes nerve-wracking situations dealing with corrupt authorities, natural disasters, and project failure. He writes about his time in Northern Angola at the end of a bloody civil war, discusses building a gold mine in cartel territory in Colombia, and looking for water in the windswept pampa of southern Argentina. He writes about crawling a kilometer into a pipe in the high Andes to inspect damage and about night shifts at a vast Arctic diamond mine. He has driven through a blazing jungle in Eastern Bolivian forest fires and survived tense standoffs with armed Pork-knockers, or South American itinerant miners.

Gilmer writes from a place rarely heard from in the debate: an industry linked not only to the environmental challenges we face as a species, but to the very systems our lives— and economy—depend on. This Rare Earth is an unsparing, thought-provoking, and frankly confessional dive into the unseen costs of our technological and industrial addictions.