TRUDEAU, COBALT SLAVERY & ENVIRONMENTAL IMPERIALISM
How Electric Vehicles Destroy the Environment and Introduces More Slave Labour
It’s not obvious to the layperson how mandating electric vehicles to be the only type of vehicle in Canada to be sold by 2035, would contribute immensely to more environmental damage, slave and child labour. Roman Baber has rightfully stated the dangers of central planning of an economy which is designed to ignore the market, the will of the individual and society as a whole in favour of the will of the elite among us.
ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE
The major components of electric vehicle batteries are lithium, manganese, cobalt, graphite, steel, and nickel. Electric vehicles usually comes with the tags, “green technology” and “sustainability”. Let’s find out how clean and sustainable they are.
The above image depicts Lithium Fields' in the Salar de Atacama salt flats in northern Chile. According to Friends of The Earth Europe, “the extraction of lithium has significant environmental and social impacts, especially due to water pollution and depletion. In addition, toxic chemicals are needed to process lithium. The release of such chemicals through leaching, spills or air emissions can harm communities, ecosystems and food production. moreover, lithium extraction inevitably harms the soil and also causes air contamination.” They continued to state that, “the salt flats where lithium is found are located in arid territories. In these places, access to water is key for the local communities and their livelihoods, as well as the local flora and fauna. In Chile’s Atacama salt flats, mining consumes, contaminates and diverts scarce water resources away from local communities. The extraction of lithium has caused water-related conflicts with different communities, such as the community of toconao in the north of Chile. In Argentina’s Salar de hombre muerto, local communities claim that lithium operations have contaminated streams used for humans, livestock and crop irrigation.”
This is clear evidence already of dangerous environmental impacts of lithium mining, just one of the 6 major components of EV batteries. One of the inputs of lithium mining, is water. To mine one ton of lithium, 2.2 million litres of water needed. We can see how lithium mining alone can cause environmental and social disasters in the countries that are producing lithium. A single electric vehicle uses a lithium-ion battery pack that contains approximately 8kg of Lithium and as 2,200 litres of water are needed to mine 1kg of water, each electric vehicle requires the use of approximately 17,600 litres of water.
According to StatsCan, in the year 2021, 1,675,633 million vehicles were sold in Canada, which means that in 2035 when all new vehicles are meant to be sold as Electric Vehicles, the Canadian EV market will consume 29,491,140,800 (29 BILLION) litres of water and 14,776 tons of lithium from the planet every year. According to a study by the Tallahssee College, “Mining takes up 65% of the province’s water in Salar de Atacama, Chile. This puts a halt in the growth of farms that are struggling to find water for their crops. Places like this are already depleted of water since it is such dry climate. When farmers struggle to care for their animals and water their crop, that puts stress on communities for the need of food.” A majority of the lithium used for electric vehicles in Canada, will not be mined in Canada, it will be mined in poorer countries like Chile, who have Governments that put the interest of global powers over their own citizens. Watch the video below about how green technology mining is affecting Chile. (Ignore the politics in the video)
Canadians do not see what’s happening in the countries that we are extracting natural resources from, and so blindly support politicians who makes irresponsible promises like the one made by Justin Trudeau, to eliminate sales of gas powered vehicles by 2035. I haven’t even mentioned the other components used in electric vehicle batteries, manganese, cobalt, graphite, steel, and nickel. I’ll give this to you as home work for research on how these other components affect the environment and communities surrounding the mines.
If Justin Trudeau wants to commit to mandating the sale of electric vehicles by 2035, he should also make a promise to mandate that all the battery components are mined in Canada. This is when you’ll see the uproar from Canadian so-called environmentalists. What the Canadian Government and Canadian Environmentalists are engaged in, is Environmental Imperialism, exploiting the natural resources of other nations, usually poorer nations, so that they don’t have to destroy their own lands and environment. They would wipe Chile and the DRC off the map if it meant achieving their misleading goals of sustainability and a zero carbon future.
SLAVE LABOUR
Cobalt is another major component of EV batteries, and one of the main producers of cobalt, is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). According to the Wilson Center, over 70% of the world’s Cobalt mining occurs in the DRC, which is one of the world’s poorest countries. The Wilson Center goes on to state that “Small-scale mining in the DRC involves people of all ages, including children, obligated to work under harsh conditions. Of the 255,000 Congolese mining for cobalt, 40,000 are children, some as young as six years. Much of the work is informal small-scale mining in which labourers earn less than $2 per day while using their own tools, primarily their hands”. The Bylines Times calls it “Modern Day Cobalt Slavery in Congo”. Don’t believe it? Watch the video below.
The same people in Canada, usually the New Democratic Party of Canada, claim that they are pro-worker and advocate on the behalf of workers, but would gladly support the enslavement of children and adults in other Nations so that they can meet their United National Sustainable Development Goal Number 7 in Canada. If they want access to so called "clean/green” technologies, they should ask for it to be mined in Canada by workers earning 2x the minimum wage and in accordance with Canada’s strict Occupational Health and Safety Laws. Will they?
Are Electric Vehicles Really Green?
Check out this video.
Are Electric Vehicles Bad?
No, they aren’t. It is an amazing technology that will revolutionize the future of transportation; because it took a risk and opened up the market to new and budding technologies. Human beings are ingenious, it cannot stop producing and innovating, so we may find that there are other technologies that exist or that will be created to displace both electric vehicles and gas powered vehicles, and do so according to market demand. The problem is the interference from Government in the energy and transportation market which will result in more degradation of the environment, enslavement of peoples and driving the world’s population further into poverty.
Technology must not be forced upon society. Society must have the liberty to accept or reject technologies as it advances, the free market must decide when it wants more electric vehicles, not Justin Trudeau. It would be a complete waste of monetary, natural and human resources to mandate electric vehicles, only to find out that Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles are a safer, more environmentally friendly and affordable option.
So What’s The Solution?
As an engineer that specializes in renewable energy, particularly solar, I love the technology more than anything. I am an EV, Solar, Wind and Hydro fanboy. I will promote Off-Grid Solar Panel Systems because I believe its one of the best ways to reduce reliance on the utility grid and become more self-sustainable and independent, which is one of the topics of Critical Government Theory. But I know what the realities are and we cannot keep sacrificing others to make ourselves feel good.
The solution isn’t to force the sale of 1.6 million Electric Vehicles per year in Canada, connected to a utility grid that cannot sustain them. The solution is certainly not engaging in environmental imperialism and cobalt slavery.
We simply must let the free market decide whether it wants gas, electric or hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles. The free market is the most sustainable way to develop and implement new technologies. The planet will accept more truly environmentally sustainable vehicles when it’s ready, and not a day sooner.
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