Every capitalist industry on the Earth can’t shake its human rights abuse problem.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Batteries, not just EVs.
The EV industry
can’twon’t shake its human rights abuse problemFTFT - unless capitalism has suddenly started to not work like capitalism.
Naturally, it’s quite difficult to shake something you so strongly embrace.
