True? Exaggerated? Entirely made-up propaganda? You decide:
The birthplace of most electric cars is the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country where the diamond trade has helped finance civil war. There, reports the Deseret News, “slave labor” is feeding “big tech’s quest for cobalt,” an element used in the batteries that drive EVs.
“Our children are dying like dogs,” a Congolese mother whose son and cousin died while working in the Congo’s cobalt mines, says the Deseret News. She and others have filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court that “insists companies are simply turning a blind eye to the egregious abuses that include children killed in tunnel collapses or losing limbs or suffering from other horrific injuries caused by mining accidents.”
1 comment:
I'm puzzled about everything to do with electric vehicles. They don't have the range of gas powered cars and they don't have the power. Sure, eventually they'll be able to run trucks or tractors off of electric motors, but the cost for the battery packs will make it prohibative. I had wondered about the issues with battery disposal early on. Our landfills are already overflowing and yet shifting all vehicles to electric power would make disposal and replacement of batteries a huge environmental issue. Plus there is the cost. I've heard anywhere from $5000 to $50000 to replace batteries depending on the make. The final straw is the issue of cobalt and rare earths being dug, often using slave labor. The toxicity of cobalt has been known for a long time. How is it that the Green Lobby is so oblivious to this issue? And finally, we've seen power grids stretched to capacity. Adding millions of electric power cars will only make that worse. I'll stick to my gas fed Outback, thank you.
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