Cobalt is an issue, so is lithium, copper, nickle, and oil; which are all used to produce our technology, and “green solutions” like electric cars. We’ll all be driving such things in future, but the current and next 20 years of mining the resources necessary for these tools, and all our screens, has continued to exploit foreign lands and people; this continued abuse is inexcusable. I’m compliant, and so are you dear reader. Together, we’re looking away from a painful reality, which signals the end of environmental sense. In an effort to expand clean energy, people and nature, out of sight and mind, are paying the ultimate price for our convenience, and false feel good economy built on sustainability buzzwords. Heavy metals and petroleum (oil) continues to be extracted at faster and faster paces. Like the exponential growth of our ecological collapse, in the form of natural disasters and climate catastrophes, our turn towards electricity gladly helps the immediate onset of hell on earth. If you are wondering what on earth I’m talking about, take a moment to look up Kanshi, DRC. Look closely at this map link and observe the cobalt mines. There are many nearby, and the people who live there are eating, drinking, and breathing in cobalt for you and I to sit here contemplating the world wide web in comfort- plugging in whatever we like for convenience.
In the same way America built its glorious prosperity on the backs of slaves, today we continue to endorse the oppression of others for our own betterment. I’m not sure if this practice has ever not been a part of human survival- that fittest thing? But before I go down a rabbit hole of morality, let’s redirect back to electricity and this new progressive obsession with electrifying, as though plugging in is above drilling oil- because oil still goes into all that lovely plastic used in the manufacturing of all our electrics. Yes, not burning oil is best, but petrochemicals are putting out plenty of CO2 in other forms, and the heavy metal toxins to make our precious renewable batteries far outweighs most current oil production impacts. The video above comes from a larger documentary from a German public broadcasting agency called The Cobalt Challenge- The Dark Side of Energy Transition.
This film is about the cost of battery manufacturing, and global projections of manufacturing and how it impacts The Democratic Republic of Congo and Finland directly. If you don’t have an hour and a half to spare- in a nutshell; human rights abuse, ecological annihilation, and continued corporate denial fed by consumer assurance that green energy is electric cars and techno social equity. Spoiler- it’s not. I’ve known about rare earth mineral abuses since getting my first smart phone about a decade ago, but the growth of extraction and delusions of electrical salvation from combustion has become so prevalent, I feel it bears more scrutiny and some ethic check critical thinking around the future of renewable energy within consumer capitol growth expectation and the costs there of.
Back in 2019, international rights advocacy groups against several major US companies. Another similar suit was dismissed in 2021, because the tech companies did not own the mines, and therefor, were not responsible for the conditions within. Even more recently, in 2023, an activist helping to gather information for studies of the human abuses in the cobalt mines had to flee the country with his family. The circumstances bringing our eager fingers tech and longer lasting batteries for future driving will continue to cost in ways most of us cannot comprehend, making it easier for advertising to sooth our worries with green wash jargon like renewable and carbon neutral. All this wonderful clean technology will take very dirty mines to produce. What is the solution then? Well, we could all start by cutting back on purchasing tech. I’m using a refurbished phone now, and hope to keep doing that. Writing the companies you buy from to find out where they are sourcing their cobalt is useful- but so many cheap batteries from China still end up on American shelves, and those metals are sourced without any oversight. China is currently the worst extraction offender in DRC, and the extraction abuses of Congo stretch back hundreds of years. Colonial depredation is a revolving door in Africa, but the current cobalt trend remains DRC dominate, and that’s the metal our smart tech needs.
Please take heart in knowing a light is starting to shine in on these abuses, and the world is realizing what a cost our energy transitions mean for ecological stability, or do they? Hopefully you and I have learned a little more today reader, because it’s only part of a very complex supply chain of horrors our daily conveniences cost the world in humanity, ecology, and future thriving. Our stock market does not falter over clean water and air, but will continue to crumble as the climate intensity grows. It’s all one big interconnected web of life. The waters that now flow out of Finland and Congo, empty into Oceans and evaporate up into rain clouds, which carry the toxic particulates around the world so we can all enjoy our consumer folly. Tesla is coming for your ground water with Coke and Nestle. BNSF transports industrial waste out of sight throughout the country, yet it’s still being dumped somewhere to leech deep into our aquifers in time. Battery makers in Finland scoff at waste pipes rupturing into the interconnected lakes of no longer pristine wilderness near the Arctic circle. But Biden put a halt on his refuge drilling, for the sake of electric cars? It’s all turning into a fable with dire warnings. So learn a little French and sing with me now to ease our worries and consent.
EEC Forest Stewardship 