Electric cars are not as green as we have been led to believe. And the evidence is piling up: everyone from The Washington Post and 60 Minutes to Amnesty International have exposed the horrendous costs of electric cars to people and the planet.
As the following video explains, unlike regular cars, which run on gasoline-powered engines, electric cars require expensive batteries. Electric car batteries are made from toxic, hard-to-find metals called “rare earths.” These rare earth metals, including lithium and cobalt, are mined primarily in places like China and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where pollution is rampant and thousands of children are forced to work in the mines.
Recent investigations have uncovered the appalling cost of rare earth mining:
- ...Amnesty International: “It isn’t only adults who dig for cobalt. So too do children, earning as little as two dollars a day. And they are ripe for exploitation. The United Nations, which is based in the [Democratic Republic of Congo], says that there are at least 40,000 children working in these ‘artisanal mines’ in the southern parts of the country.”
- ...Study by Arthur D. Little: “…the usage of heavy metals in the manufacture of lithium-ion battery packs for [battery electric vehicles] combined with pollution generated by the US power grid (e.g. tailings from coal power plants) for the In-Use portion of a BEVs lifecycle generate approximately three times the amount of human toxicity compared to [internal combustion engine vehicles].”
Despite the rush to mine cobalt, only 1% of cars in America are electric. Yet many environmentalists want to see millions more electric cars on the road. That would mean more demand for cobalt and lithium, and more human rights abuses that come with mining these foreign metals..."
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