SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
One of the big changes facing the global transportation industry is electrification. Big corporations and car manufacturers are ditching combustion engines, with Toyota saying it will have an electrified or hybrid version of all vehicles by 2025. But there is a dark side to this revolution.
Cobalt is one of the key ingredients added in electric batteries, and more than half of it is currently mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Amnesty says children as young as seven work in dangerous conditions in Congo cobalt mines.
"At the present time, you'd have to say that there isn't a lot of regulation around the mining of cobalt," says Gavin Wendt, the founding director and senior resource analyst at Australia-based Minelife.
Wendt thinks recent international scandals in the car industry have put pressure on car manufacturers to ethically source the materials needed for their cars.
"We're seeing more and more ... pressure from society to ensure that these commodities are ethically sourced ... A very big issue is going to be where this cobalt will come from, and hence companies are looking to source cobalt outside of the DRC as much as possible," Wendt says.
With 54 percent of cobalt currently coming from the Congo, that goal is still a long way off.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Aiwendil on Tuesday December 26 2017, @02:57PM (16 children)
1. Set up a company that buys cobalt at 10% above market rate and insists all should be free of child labour
2. Promote this heavily
3. ????
4. Bankruptcy
(In case anyone wonders - yes. 3 is "realize that people care more about 50 USD on their car purchase")
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday December 26 2017, @03:06PM (8 children)
3. Is more like: 7 year old kids can't get money anymore, so they starve and die, or go into child prostitution and die of HIV, or otherwise find some even worse way to end up dead, then 11 years later there's no new 18 year old miners left alive to work in the mines.
The way to really do it is to make people want to do something. So there's no jobs for educated 18 year olds... How about making some, then the kids will stay in school to become rich H.S. grads at age 18 or whatever. Another classic from USA history is massive unionization, then the union bosses are like, "due to downturn and automation, gonna be a lot of unemployed 7 year old kids, or unemployed 25 year old fathers, and us union leaders being the older men and uninterested in economic suicide, lets ban child labor, sry kids stuff happens"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:05PM (5 children)
So, if Elon can sell the new model for $35K, could he bump that up to $36K and use the extra 3% to do something about the conditions in the Congo?
Something like, oh - selectively sourcing Cobalt from the mines that treat their workers the least shittily?
The proposal I see implied here is to just cut off the Congo's export of Cobalt markets, but if they could actually get information from within the country about which mines are the worst abusers and just reduce their business, I think that would be much more effective than isolating the whole country and leaving them with less export market.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:11PM (1 child)
Unless Elon himself makes sure the little miners get their cash, and are not forced to hand them over once he is gone, I doubt the extra $1k would really do anything. It wouldn't reach the right people. It's not like he buys the Cobalt from the miners so if he wants to give the seller and extra buck it's going to stay with the seller and if the child-miners complain they'll be replaced by some child-miner that doesn't.
It's like sending foreign aid to starving people in Africa. A disturbing amount of said aid goes local administration, bribes and to propping up the local dictator and his mansions and eventually something might trickle down to the starving children and people. I doubt anything except if Elon creates Elon Military Solutions and just take over the entire country by force things would change for them. But then Elon would be a benevolent dictator, at least in theory, so that might not be his style.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:32PM
See below, it's not about handouts, it's about giving business to businesses that don't send children to die for the chance at a days' wages. And, with any luck, continuing to improve the workers' conditions by continuing to select the mines that offer the best conditions to their workers - making the human part of the equation part of the contract negotiation instead of just the price per ton of delivered material.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by n1 on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:37PM (1 child)
Let us not pretend Elon can sell a model3 for 35k at a profit... he's unable to sell a 100k modelS or X at a profit.
by all appearances they need the deposits for the roadster and semi to fund current cash burn (deposits are refundable if cancelled eventually, but they're in Tesla general bank account, not held in escrow), they're looking at a 2bn loss this year and Tesla loses money even if you remove the R&D costs...
the price of disruption is not included in their gross margin... the owning of dealerships and service centers, which they apparently do not intend to make a profit center, but still excluded from their proprietary nonGAAP gross margin calculation.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:28PM
Whether profit or loss at $35K, each model including a 3% "don't be a colonial asshole" tax should have minimal net impact on sales (some loss due to increased price, some gain due to feel-good PR), but _could_ change behavior of the mine operators.
I'm not suggesting that the miners themselves will suddenly become owners of the mines and put their former oppressors to work for them, but I am suggesting that regular inspections of the working conditions, and a readiness to change and purchase from those who provide the best conditions, could encourage all to change for the better. Note: I wouldn't really expect any of this $1K per car to go to the miners directly, it would barely fund the cost of surveillance and accountability communication with the mine operators, with maybe a token $100 per car given to the mine operators as compensation for extracting less value from their human capital.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:53AM
Honestly, this is a labor issue, and it probably is foolish to expect it to be completely solved by the actions of someone from the investment and entepreneurial class. He can certainly offer some charitable help, but perhaps the best thing he can do is allow folks like the IWW and other labor activists to promote better working conditions, and then hire them. THEN you can go promoting stories like this one to shame your competition who is using the union busting competition down the jungle path.
Businesses at the end of the day need to remain competitive or you'll have nobody left to complain about because they'll be insolvent. Some like to echo the idea that it is not the responsibility of the oppressed to free themselves, but I'd argue that there's only so much door opening you can expect from the outside before you really just need to push it open a bit yourself and walk through.
Anyway, take that all with plenty of salt; I'm just pondering this all from the safety of my couch, where it's really easy to suggest people need to risk life and limb to improve their lot in life. All I'm saying is, history seems to reward those who have been willing to take that risk, and that superheroes are rare in nonfiction.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:16PM (1 child)
So I'm dropping by soylentnews every few months to check the state of the site and holy crap, there's a guy trying to justify child labour and getting upvoted... no wonder this site's commenting population has a reputation for being edgy lowlifes.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday December 28 2017, @07:04PM
Lazy analogy AC. A better analogy would be if you want to eliminate the root causes of homelessness, closing soup kitchens won't do anything other than give the "appear do something, do anything, and then tweet about it proudly to collect the street cred" crowd something to feel self important about although they aren't improving anything at all. I mean, without soup kitchens the homeless would be even worse off, but since you're only hearing and caring about the homeless because the soup kitchen is in the news, well, your feelz will reeeee less if soup kitchens are forcibly removed from the news, right?
Maybe a better analogy is if you oppose the human suffering of war orphans, the most humane solution probably isn't drone surgical strikes on orphanages. Once the nuns are all dead, you won't have to hear about orphans anymore, but that kinda misses the point about the morality of killing the nuns and orphans.
If you don't like it that a sub population has nothing, then shitting on the only people giving them anything might feel better, might feel like doing something, but it isn't going to help.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by stretch611 on Tuesday December 26 2017, @03:30PM (1 child)
Unlike underpants gnomes, the answer is obvious...
#3 is Watch China buy all the cheap Cobalt from Congo and undercut everyone else's prices.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:33PM
You mean kinda like buying 75% of the world supplies of ore and producing 49% of the refined cobalt? Like they are already doing since a couple of years ago.
(Seriously - cobalt use in batteries is small compared to in steel)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @03:40PM (4 children)
Incorrect. So wildly vastly incorrect.
The CEOs are the ones who care about 50 USD savings while charging the customers the exact same price. Your consumer position theory works better for groceries where you have two near identical items on the exact same shelf, but even then people are sometimes convinced to pay more because it is marketed better or they feel like the more expensive item is better. With today's surge in environmentalism / activism you could totally market the "no child labor here" aspect.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Aiwendil on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:29PM (2 children)
Well, nothing really prevents Tesla from putting a "ethical cobalt: +50USD" option in their extra-lists, and it would be in line with they other extras
(Score: 2) by n1 on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:55PM (1 child)
It would perhaps make the Tesla loyalists think that Tesla doesn't do everything in the most ethical and green way by default, which is why the most ethical consumers are now on their 4th or 5th brand new Tesla in the same number of years, saving the planet... (or because it takes so long to get a Tesla repaired, they buy a new one [as described by a Tesla owner and shareholder on their forum])
On top of that Tesla needs all the cash they can get, and giving it away to child laborers who can't ever hope to afford a trip to mars or an aesthetically pleasing solar roof is a waste of valuable hat marketing resources.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:00PM
So... Want a spin and profit... Let's see. "Extra childfriendly production: 100USD" and then only bump the mining surplus by 5% and pocket the remaining 75USD.
Or they could introduce a new trademark "Coral Cobalt" and charge 100USD and only source from australian mines (costs as much, less children [and adults] involved per mined unit), and then not mention that they get the same Cobalt and still tell the world that all their cobalt comes from mines that doesn't involve child labour.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:27AM
Our grocery store charges nearly 100% premium for "feel good" products, sometimes more.
Regular milk: $3.79/gallon, Organic: $6.99
Regular eggs, somewhere around $1.29 a dozen, Cage Free: $2.50 all the way up to $4.79 per dozen.
Grass fed beef is one of the bargains at $7.99/lb while equivalent ground sirloin is $4.99/lb...
🌻🌻 [google.com]