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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 looorg on Tuesday December 26 2017, @02:35PM (3 children)
Is where cobalt comes from really a big issue? Is it something that people buying a car or some new piece of electronics really think about? "Oh I would totally buy this car (or product) if it wasn't cobalt mined in Congo by little children that was made to make the battery". Has anyone sane ever reason like that? Anyone prevented from buying new high-tech electronics or products due to it? Sounds like the same problem they have with "blood diamonds" (also funnily enough minded in Congo) -- oh sorry but I don't want your diamond necklace since they are none certified diamonds from the Congo ... or clothing made by little children (or whatever) in Asia? People want cheap fun stuff and Ethical issues are left to the ivory tower elites.
That said shouldn't the issue then for the moral technology producers be to find a Cobalt replacement instead of bitch about it? Cause unless they go in an take over the Congo (and all those other ethically challenged nations) and install their human-rights-friendly-puppet-regime this just ain't going to resolve itself anytime soon, that is unless they want people to stop buying their morally challenged products that is -- which they absolutely wouldn't want.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @03:01PM (1 child)
Still, when those same people then start screaming at everyone else about *their* pet "ethical issues" (be it animal rights, global warming, rape culture, diversity enforcement, etc. etc.) it can be fun to rub their noses in things such as these.
Too frequently one's "ethics" is defined as "a sanctimonious way to inconvenience someone *else*", and a tool for uncovering it is useful thing to have.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday December 26 2017, @03:17PM
The usual NIMBY issues on a personal level often appear, or a giant case of "Do as I say and not as I do". But I do agree with that it's usually quite funny cause whatever their cause and beef is one is almost always sure to find that they break their own rules all the time.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday December 26 2017, @03:18PM
My wife has a FB friend like that. I donno what she's compensating for, she must think she was Hitler or Genghis Kahn in a previous (or secret) life but she shitposts at least once a day about how much better of a person she is compared to everyone else because she likes some leftist idiocy or another.
Looking at shitty cultures, like what social media produces, and comparing to long lived cultures that must not suck too bad or they'd have died out, its interesting that contemporary social media leftist violates biblical commandments 1 (because likes are God, not God is God), 2 (because you shall not bow down and worship anything such as a post as if it were God), 3 (because you should be kissing up to God not social media), 4 (because at least one day a week you should STFU and stop bragging for likes), 5 (because you should look for guidance from family ancestors not from bragging shitposters on social media), 7 (because most of the single friends I had on FB were using it mostly to assist in fornication), 8 (because repost / retweet), 9 (shall not lie about neighbor friends and family, shit, thats like 50% of my wife's feed, nothing like family feud over facebook), 10 (because the only purpose of showing crap you bought to people you don't care about is to have them covet it). Just saying I'm not necessarily claiming invoking the Catholic Inquisition would be a solely good thing, but I am saying they have a hell of a lot of self selected shitty people from social media to burn at the stake before anyone of quality is lost to the great BBQ.
(Score: 2) by J_Darnley on Tuesday December 26 2017, @02:43PM (5 children)
Environmentalists have said that climate change will affect the poorest in the world first/more. Is it better to have the poor children dig up batteries to save their future, or another poor child's future? Which is the lesser of two evils?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @03:09PM (3 children)
Yep. The children mining cobalt and diamonds are doing so because it is the best and safest income available to them and their family. Often, after being "rescued" by western charities, these children jump on another truck and go right back to work at the mine. If it weren't for the mine, many of them would instead have to take to crime, or join a militia, else their families starve.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday December 26 2017, @05:11PM (2 children)
Then the real solution is to offer a better choice, not to ban the existing one, and leave them to whatever the worse option is.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @10:27PM (1 child)
I await your socially conscious ideas to give these children gainful employment. /snarc
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:05PM
How about reforming the existing industry to be less hazardous to the workers?
Kids wanna work in mines? Fine, let the kids work in the mines - that's a choice.
Mines wanna operate hazardously? Not so fine, let the mines charge a little more for their ore so they can operate without being a serious health hazard to their workers. This one passes the costs out to the developed world to cover the increased cost of not killing the miners in the name of cheap product.
China wants to buy Cobalt from the lowest cost supplier, which happens to be the hazardous mine? That would be their choice, too. I think if there are safer mines operating alongside, the workers would tend to choose to work for the safer mines first - and China might have some supply quality issues with their more cheaply sourced Cobalt, or maybe not.
The US/EU doesn't control the world, and shouldn't operate under the delusion that it does. On the flip side, the US/EU does control their imports and hopefully has outgrown their colonial exploitation phase - they're not boots on the ground forcing people at gunpoint anymore, but they're still controlling people with money.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @05:07PM
I do not know the answer, but did the british care when they were importing goods from america made in factories by children?
(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]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday December 26 2017, @03:37PM
One doesn't make such people less desperate by taking away their livelihoods. One thing that we should accept here is that the very jobs which are being criticized here are the primary way that such people will improve their lives. I don't wish to completely discourage so-called "ethical sourcing" because that does have some potential to improve peoples' lives faster than the present course (for example, it's not that big a hit to pay those workers a little more or implement measures which are low lying fruit to make their work environment safer and less hazardous). But it's very easy for large masses of clueless people to make matters much worse by disrupting the trade that makes desperate peoples' lives better. Rural Congo is not going to be able to afford the virtue signaling of the developed world.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 26 2017, @03:51PM (9 children)
There is suffering, cruelty, and despair bound up in many of the things we associate with civilization. The shiny new widget you just got for Christmas yesterday was quite likely produced in China by prison labor or children or workers who are so miserable the factory puts nets around the building to catch the suicides hurling themselves off the roof. The succulent meat you ate for Christmas dinner was slaughtered in an abbatoir that reeked of blood and offal and rang with the screams of terrified animals. The wooden table you ate at was clearcut from a pristine mountainside that is now criss-crossed with muck and broken limbs. The gas you burned in your car to get to grandma's was pumped out of the ground and used to fund Islamic terror all over the world.
Against that backdrop cobalt sourced from mean people in Africa seems not so extraordinary.
It's woven throughout the global capitalist system. We either accept that, and don't get our panties in a particular bunch about any one thing, or we undertake a massive reinvention of how we do business as a species. The former is practical, but not comfortable or moral. The latter is a project that will take generations to build consensus and carry out. A third path, which is really only open to individuals who don't want to live with their cognitive dissonance and are too impatient to wait a century for change, is perhaps to DIY as much of their material lives as they can. Doing that would never amount to more than a niche movement, but it is cheaper and more fulfilling.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:13PM (8 children)
Unfortunately, I like Tantalum capacitors, Cobalt in my batteries, and Aluminum in my metal frames, and I can't DIY source ANY of those things.
I can DIY source wood, Saw Palmetto berries, drinkable water, and the occasional game animal - which is a whole lot better than most city dwellers, but the wood isn't much good without metal tools to work it, and the family would die of starvation within a few years if I started hunting all the meat off my land - especially if I had to use DIY made bows and arrows. On the other hand, using only DIY bows and arrows, I might not be able to drive the local game population to extinction, whereas with modern night vision scoped rifles I very well might...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:40PM
You can prolong the life of your tools, fix them if possible when worn or damaged. Buy used stuff. Recycle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @05:31PM (5 children)
if you dont kill all the game, but feed them "somehow" then you dont even have to hunt them much.
also if the other game doesn't see it, then the dinner murdered behind the shed will still consider you a
non-treat ... just saying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @05:56PM
Well bears, big cats and wolves generally don't eat humans, but hey anything you can do to not appear like a savory treat is probably a good thing!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @01:02AM (3 children)
That's how to do it if you don't want to bother with animal husbandry. In many parts of the world in the past, and now, people build fish traps or weirs and bait them. Easy protein. My mother gets a dozen deer in her yard because she puts out oats; she does it because she loves seeing them and the poor dears don't get enough fodder in the winter, but she could take one here or there and have plenty of meat.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:21AM (2 children)
My neighbors put out corn, we've got a regular herd of about 9 does and 3-4 bucks that come through several times a week.
There are also 100 houses in the neighborhood, and 400 houses in the next neighborhood over - probably 3-4000 houses in the deer's range, so... if everyone takes one doe as needed, the herd will be history on the first day of hunting season.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:20PM (1 child)
You could raise chickens, rabbits, or guinea pigs for food (a staple in the Andes they call cui). Or you could do like this prof and raise tilapia and salmon in a trash can [nytimes.com]. I saw a talk of his on Governor's Island and he raised so many salmon and tilapia in a large pair of garbage cans in his basement he couldn't give it away to his colleagues and students anymore.
It helps to do all those things if you have a house you own, which it sounds like you do. Apartment dwellers in the city aren't necessarily left out, either; it's a fact that people in Brooklyn used to keep pigeons on their roofs and in the attics for meat.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:56PM
I was trying to remember the movie I just watched with pigeons being kept in cages in the city as a backup food source - it was a documentary: Cuba and the Cameraman.
Island life tends to include free roaming goats and chickens, which are a sort of natural welfare system: anybody hungry enough can catch and cook one, and it doesn't take too much education, or capital, to start a curried goat stand roadside to earn a little money.
I disagree that urban dwellers can "make it work" without food import. Maybe if this was a common urban sight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosco_Verticale [wikipedia.org] it could work, but the concrete jungle only supports population densities > 1 person per 40 square meters by bringing in food (essentially, converted solar energy) from the outside. Too much solar energy is wasted on sides of buildings, roadways, parking lots, and other non-food producing uses.
I'd be curious how much water your trashcan fish man was using, maybe he worked out a closed system, but I doubt that in two garbage cans. I worked with a guy who had a relative who started a tilapia farm outside of San Antonio - followed all the laws, regulations and even incentives for agricultural development. Put in wells to get the water for the fish, San Antonio was at a good latitude and annual weather cycle for open tilapia farming - and he had a modestly profitable fish farm going in a short time. After a few years, the government shut his operation down, bought him out for fair market value, but had to shut him down because his fish were consuming more water from the aquifer than the whole town of San Antonio did. Converting to closed or even semi-closed cycle was not economical in his case, so the buyout went forward and the state did a little revision in their tax incentives for agricultural development.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @05:29PM
well this is unfortunate.
i get all my cobalt from the pharmacy. mostly it's ingested in the form of supplements in the vitame B12 class.
i didn't know you could also just drive a electrical car do get your daily dose of brain-damage preventing B12?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @05:55PM (1 child)
The dark side of wanting heat and energy as inexpensive as possible
(Score: 3, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @12:45AM
That's another excellent example. Should we all make ablutions and say prayers of forgiveness every time we cause electrons to race around and do work for us in our computers and appliances and lights, because they're driven by the agony of coal miners the world over? (We very well could, because coal mining sucks ass. The family went down for a tour in one for 45 minutes in Nova Scotia this summer and we couldn't wait to get out, it was so claustrophobic and awful.)
If we choose to not do that, then picking on the misery in cobalt mining as a way to get us to hate on alternative energy or electric cars doesn't make much sense, either.
Washington DC delenda est.