From the files of 'Be careful what you ask for'

Photo by Sebastian Pichler on Unsplash

We all know the old phrase about being careful what you ask for because you just might get it.

However, there’s another reason to be careful what you ask for, and that’s because you usually don’t know what all it will take for you to get it.

For example, if you want to be a big corporate CEO, be prepared to sacrifice anything that looks like a work-life balance.

But the idea applies in so many other areas of life that it’s not even funny.

Which brings me to our glorious green future.

In fact, it seems our glorious green future now comes with more child labor!

A new report from the Department of Labor raises tough questions about whether and to what extent forced labor and child labor are intertwined with climate-friendly technology.

The department released a report this month finding that several minerals that are key components of electric vehicles and solar panels may be produced through these unethical labor practices.

The findings point to major ethical quandaries surrounding the ongoing energy transition. Climate change, if not addressed, endangers many of the world’s most vulnerable people. At the same time, the report raises serious human rights concerns about the technology being used to address it. 

“There are supply chains where there are certain bottlenecks in countries with a very bad performance when it comes to human rights,” said Tom Moerenhout, a research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. 

“The ethics of that is critical not just for a government [that] is trying to direct public policy in an ethical way, but also often for consumers and companies,” Moerenhout added.

The new report stated forced labor is involved in the extraction of Chinese aluminum and silicon, Indonesian nickel and cobalt from Congo. It said child labor was being used to mine the aforementioned cobalt as well as copper from Congo and Zambia, Zambian manganese, Zimbabwean lithium and inputs used for South Korean Indium. 

It also highlighted labor concerns regarding the supply chain for certain Chinese products, saying Chinese lithium-ion batteries were produced with minerals from Congo that used child labor and/or forced labor.

Whoops.

Here’s the thing, cobalt and nickel are kind of important for this sort of thing, so we have to get them from somewhere and the one attempt to mine cobalt here in the United States fell flat. Why? The price of cobalt dropped. It was no longer profitable to try to mine it in the United States.

But in poor countries, it was still plenty viable.

Yet while we view child labor as unethical, we have to remember that our society is rich enough that we can afford to hold that belief. Now, I share it and I’d rather kids be kids, and worry about things like school, video games, television, and that sort of thing, but the truth is that when you’re barely able to feed yourself, you need every penny you can get.

That means kids going out to work.

That means doing some grueling, back-breaking, nasty work like mining stuff like cobalt.

It means paying for dirty, nasty strip mining so you can convince yourself and your friends that you’re better than those of us who still prefer a gasoline- or diesel-powered car.

All around us, we tend to be oblivious to the reality of the rest of the world. We simply think something should be so and then just act like they are. We ignore what all might be required to make that something so.

This is the Law of Unintended Consequences in action.

People demand this glorious green future, then are shocked to find out that not only do people barely scraping by not want to spend twice as much for a product that is, at best, only half as good, but that some of this hinges on putting young children in mine shafts and praying they don’t collapse on them.

You can pretend it doesn’t happen, but that doesn’t make reality reshape itself.

This idea of “green” everything is the epitome of luxury beliefs, as is the ability of many to shield themselves from the cost of that luxury belief.

What’s more, you’re not going to change it. We need those minerals and someone has to get them. Unless you want to find a way to pay so much to adults in these countries that kids no longer have to work, then force the issue through legislation there, you’re just going to have to learn to deal with how you fund child labor.

Or you could just stop being an ass about it, pay more for your stuff, and stop trying to foist your own values on the rest of us by force of law simply because it makes you feel better.

Be careful what you ask for because you may not want to pay the price expected.

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