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: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:57AM
It depends what level you want to live at. The closer to the bleeding edge of technology and convenience you want to live, the more compromises you'll have to make. That stands to reason. But most of us can be much more independent, DIY, than we've been taught to believe we can be. In the Golden Age of Reality TV there are a lot of shows now that showcase people who've decided to live off-grid. Their lives for the most part seem a reasonable approximation of what I'd call civilized. If you watch those shows and agree they live pretty well by your reckoning, too, then there's your easy road map to follow and do what they did.
The TV may be a prime culprit for thinking we need more than we do, though, now that I think anout it. It's always pushing, pushing, pushing to buy more, more, more. Maybe if we switch it off we'll feel less materially unfulfilled.
Washington DC delenda est.