UN Warns Electric Automobile Rush is Causing Human Rights Abuses. Guest essay by Eric Worrall h/t JoNova, MaxD – The United Nations has issued a belated warning that soaring demand for raw materials for the electric vehicle revolution is creating dangerous conditions for children working in toxic mines.
JoNova also provides a link to a 2018 Australian ABC report which drills into the Cobalt issue in more detail. Children mining cobalt in slave-like conditions as global demand for battery material surgesThe Signal / By Angela Lavoipierre, Stephen Smiley and Lin EvlinPosted 25 July 2018…Former child labourer Yannick from Kolwezi, a city of more than 500,000 people in the south of the DRC, dropped out of school and went into full-time work at the age of seven. The UN report also mentions human rights abuses in Chile, with locals in an arid region being deprived of water and forced to relocate, as the water they depend on is being diverted to lithium mining.
What is so important about Cobalt? Like this: Like Loading... Related. Child miners aged four living a hell on Earth so YOU can drive an electric car: Awful human cost in squalid Congo cobalt mine that Michael Gove didn’t consider in his ‘clean’ energy crusade. From The Daily Mail Sky News investigated the Katanga mines and found Dorsen, 8, and Monica, 4The pair were working in the vast mines of the Democratic Republic of CongoThey are two of the 40,000 children working daily in the mines, checking rocks for cobalt By Barbara Jones for The Mail on Sunday Published: 17:01 EDT, 5 August 2017 | Updated: 08:37 EDT, 6 August 2017 Picking through a mountain of huge rocks with his tiny bare hands, the exhausted little boy makes a pitiful sight. Climate Friendly Lithium Battery Horror: Lawsuit Accuses Alphabet, Apple, Dell and Tesla of Complicity in Child Exploitation. Guest essay by Eric Worrall According to International Rights Advocates, Alphabet, Apple, Dell and Tesla have structured their supply chain oversight procedures in a way which makes them inaccessible to their alleged victims.
Cobalt is an essential component of high capacity lithium batteries used in modern electronic equipment, mobile phones, laptops and electric vehicles. The Democratic Republic of Congo provides a cheap source of Cobalt by exploiting children – sending children into horrific unsafe conditions, where many of them die, either from mine accidents or from exposure to the toxic Cobalt minerals they are mining. The named companies claim they have procedures in place to try to stamp out this evil.
The lawsuit alleges these procedures are an exercise in plausible deniability. Like this: Like Loading... New Report Sheds Light on Tesla's Dirty Batteries - Principia Scientific International. Published on Written by Chris White The high demand for the lithium ion batteries that power electric vehicles like those produced by Tesla Motors could potentially do more harm than good to the environment, according to a report Sunday from The Washington Post.
The electric vehicle automaker uses Panasonic batteries, which, according to the report, uses graphite derived from mines in China. The mines are raining graphite particles down on the residents of several villages in northeastern in the country. Tesla told reporters its batteries do not include graphite from the Chinese company BTR, yet declined to identify its graphite source. Panasonic, one of the largest manufacturers of Tesla’s lithium ion batteries, is forking over $1.6 billion to the cost of Tesla’s “gigafactory,” a massive factory meant to build the company’s lithium ion batteries. Still, the report laid out in excruciating detail some of the effects graphite mining has on Chinese communities. Read more: dailycaller.com. Amnesty Report: Green Battery Technology Built on a Foundation of Child Abuse.
Child Cobalt Miners in Kailo, Congo – Author Julien Harneis, source Wikimedia. Guest essay by Eric Worrall Amnesty International has released a shocking report, about conditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the child labourers who mine much of the world’s Cobalt. Blood cell phones and Teslas. Leonardo DiCaprio made millions for portraying smuggler Danny Archer in the film “Blood Diamond,” which supported mostly unworkable and now defunct efforts to certify that diamonds did not come from “conflict” areas.
He loves modern gadgets and takes great pride in being able to lecture “commoners” about safeguarding Earth’s climate – while flying to Earth Day events on private jets, getting chauffeured in limousines, and being driven to Oscar ceremonies in a heavily subsidized Prius. It turns out, hybrid and electric vehicles are not so “green” and “eco-friendly,” after all. Ditto for cell phones, laptops, wind turbines, solar panels, and a plethora of technologies that utilize batteries, magnets and other components which require cobalt, lithium, rare-earths, and other metals. A recent Washington Post article, “The cobalt pipeline,” attempted to trace the origins of that essential metal from environmentally Global cobalt demand has tripled since 2010.
Environmental values. Cobalt: Africa's New 'Blood Diamond' Green Killers: Congo’s Miners Dying to Feed World’s Hunger for Electric Cars. Child miners aged four living a hell on Earth so YOU can drive an electric car: Awful human cost in squalid Congo cobalt mine that Michael Gove didn’t consider in his ‘clean’ energy crusade. California eco-politicians fail to denounce the proliferation of child labor in the EV supply chain.
“Capitol Democrats are placing the burdens of reaching environmental goals using electric vehicles on the backs of children.
Amnesty Report: Green Battery Technology Built on a Foundation of Child Abuse.