Every capitalist industry on the Earth can't shake its human rights abuse problem.
this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
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Fight a few wars over oil and nobody bats an eye. Mine cobalt in less than perfect conditions and everybody loses their mind.
The powerful are shit human beings because shit human beings seek power over others for their own gratification. All of human history the worst people have plotted and killed their way to the top. Capitalism tries to harness that greed but it doesn’t work. Systems need to punish our worst natures, not reward them.
People like Elon Musk as exactly like the kid in the sandbox who wanted the entire sandbox for himself, and who would fight for all sandboxes in the yard despite not being able to use them.
That kind of personality will take all until nothing is left.
Batteries, not just EVs.
The EV industry can’t shake its human rights abuse problem
Because nearly all these stories pushed by the fossil fuel industry have been debunked. Meanwhile burning fossil fuels ALONE kills more than 250,000 people every year in the US.
I don’t think the mining stuff has been debunked. But if you have a source for its debunking, please share
EVs can be better than ICEs and still a terrible industry though. You phrase it as if it's one or the other.
Regardless of abuse allegations, EVs are just not the big improvement we need to fight climate change and save the millions of people that will die because of it. We need fundamental changes like lives built around public transport, biking, and walking, not slightly better vehicles in an enormously wasteful model.
You couldn’t be more wrong. ICE alone kills more than 250,000 people a year in the US alone from air pollution. And converting transportation from 100% fossil fuel to grid electrification is delayed but 100% necessary to have ANY effect on climate change. I meant to phrase it as one or the other as we need to eliminate all fossil fuel burning ASAP.
Right, air pollution is terrible. So let's do the thing that minimizes it, which is not driving all the time.
Completely unrealistic delusional comment. People are going to drive.
For every percent increase in EVs on the road, the air pollution decreases an equivalent percent.
Actually a lot of people don't drive most of the time. If that's news to you then you probably live in a shitty place that's never going to be viable no matter what type of vehicle you use.
Yeah there are problems with battery and EV materials and their links to all kinds of nasty things. However, lets not forget how bad other industries have been (even recently) for slavery... the cotton industry, the soft drinks indusrty, even the plastics recycling industry.
And OK, lithium is a problem, but there are other ways to store energy that arent being used. We need to stop expecting a perfect solution to everything and just start using sand batteries, compressed air etc, things where we do already have engineers that can accomplish something.
Not to mention petroleum industry.
Who have stolen land, drilled under people's own land to access their oil, drilled into other countries without permission (eg Russian firms). They've also hidden data about environmental damage since the 1960s including CO2 evidence. Worse than tobacco.
Interesting timing on this article given how EVs are really starting to grow in a large way. Reminds me of the articles a few months back about how demand for EVs wasn't "as high as expected" (who is setting these expectations?) even though demand is still growing at breakneck pace. Sounds to me like dinosaurs trying to throttle the growth of EVs so they can keep up sales of internal combustion vehicles, to which I say that maybe they should've invested more into the EV space to reap the rewards instead of dragging their heels at every opportunity. Not to mention the human rights abuses and wars fought to keep the internal combustion vehicle industry going.
The petroleum industry as it stands today wouldn't exist without human rights abuses. It's almost a prerequisite for large scale success in the capitalist reality in which we live.
Violence is the only way to sustain the unsustainable.
The EV industry ~~can’t~~ won't shake its human rights abuse problem
FTFT - unless capitalism has suddenly started to not work like capitalism.
Naturally, it's quite difficult to shake something you so strongly embrace.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Mining for minerals used to make EVs and batteries is plagued with allegations of abuse, the latest report from the nonprofit Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) shows.
The need for more renewable energy and clean transportation is evident, but those technologies shouldn’t come at the expense of people who live and work in places where companies source their raw materials, she said.
BHRRC’s latest report includes potential abuses linked to the mining of seven minerals: bauxite, cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, nickel, and zinc.
Combing through sustainability reports and media coverage of the world’s top three EV manufacturers, The Verge found a history of deals with Glencore and China Minmetals.
Tesla’s 2022 impact report explains that the company conducts audits of its suppliers to improve working conditions at each site and make sure “corrective actions” are taken to address any problems.
But a spokesperson for Glencore commented on BHRRC’s report last year in an email to The Verge to say, “Our assets are located in diverse contexts, some .. in more challenging socio-political circumstances with a history of conflict, limited basic services, and weak rule of law ... we work in partnership with government, civil society and development agencies to share knowledge, build capacity and contribute to enduring social and economic outcomes.”
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