G Corp
Glencore 2018 Annual report: 'the recent appearance of excess levels of uranium in the cobalt hydroxide being produced at Katanga' https://goo.gl/maps/g3VS4pfhS49eduVf8
Tech giants sued over deaths of children who mine cobalt
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Re: Tech giants sued over deaths of children who mine cobalt
#92Then the law needs to change. It's unconscionable for this to be happening. You make the buyers of that cobalt start caring, you'll make the producers of that cobalt start caring.
I don't think this makes much sense. The mineral supply chain in that part of the world is ridiculously hard to track. Even when you stop buying directly from the DRC, the minerals flow over the borders (see how Rwandan coltan exports jumped when people stopped buying DRC 'conflict' coltan). That part of the DRC is basically beyond the reach of the Congolese government and the bordering countries have been waging pro…
Hard ≠ impossible. If problem can be solved with money, then it's not a problem, it's expense.
Re: Tech giants sued over deaths of children who mine cobalt
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Insensitive or not, both statements can be true at the same time. I.e. Africa is plagued by bad leadership and corruption, and the west is more than happy to take advantage of the situation.
That's not really my point. Jumping to the fact that corruption plagues Africa immediately is what makes the comment insensitive.
You're right, they should couch the truth in at least a paragraph of explainer text.
Re: Tech giants sued over deaths of children who mine cobalt
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a lot of cases Africa's bad leadership is a direct result of the west's former colonial efforts there. Congo in particular suffered at the hands of Belgium. So this sentiment is incomplete.
Congo has been independent for 60 years. How long do you expect to hold Belgium responsible for whatever happens there?
20 years after to completely own its institutions.
40 years after to completely own its politics.
60 years after to completely own its crime and corruption.
So yeah, about now is when Belgium is entirely off the hook. If they still feel involved from colonialist guilt-trips, that's their own problem. It's time for homegrown domestic scapegoats.
Re: Tech giants sued over deaths of children who mine cobalt
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think this makes much sense. The mineral supply chain in that part of the world is ridiculously hard to track. Even when you stop buying directly from the DRC, the minerals flow over the borders (see how Rwandan coltan exports jumped when people stopped buying DRC 'conflict' coltan). That part of the DRC is basically beyond the reach of the Congolese government and the bordering countries have been waging pro…
> I don't think this makes much sense. The mineral supply chain in that part of the world is ridiculously hard to track. It's been designed to be hard to track. Just because the infrastructure is a little hit and miss and the people are overall poorer doesn't mean it's impossible to reliably manage supply lines. The problem is corporations from the "West" don't want to know where the stuff is coming from because they…
The only reason "they know your shoe size" is because you carry around a $1000 phone that tracks your every move and spend all your disposable income through their platforms.
The same cannot be said for the poor Cobalt miners, so no they can't just will that info into existence simply because they "want to know"
Re: Tech giants sued over deaths of children who mine cobalt
#96I found this is very insightful thread on this lawsuit and context behind it:
https://mobile.twitter.com/enn_nafnlaus/status/1206896495993...
0) lawyers suing have questionable history
BUT 1) Child labor in Africa is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, and just about anything sourced from Africa will have this problem.
2) The Kamoto mine in question is a copper mine. Cobalt is a secondary product. (One could just about as legitimately call attention to products using copper.)
3) Tesla is targeted in the lawsuit but does not use Congolese cobalt.
4) Possible exception to this is some possible future Tesla cells could come from LGChem which gets some of its lithium from Umicore. However, LGChem is the primary supplier of cells for GM and several other EV producers... Yet they are not named in this lawsuit.
5) Kamoto is a modern industrial mine. Artisanal mines are where child labor is used. Unskilled child labor is of dubious use in highly mechanized industrial mining sites.
6) However, Kamoto has had problems with pirate artisanal mines on its property and has tried to get the Congolese army to help keep them out. (So I guess the lawsuit would be that Kamoto has not been able to keep out illegal artisanal mines from its property?)
7) Regardless of all these points, we NEED to stop this dangerous child labor in Africa, and it's probably a good thing that this sort of thing is drawing attention to the issue.
(Note, I'm mentioning Tesla here because I'm most familiar with it and it's also mentioned most in the thread, but it's possible similar arguments apply to other companies listed: It seems they're listed because they're well-known, large tech companies, not necessarily due to amount of cobalt use or even use of unethical cobalt at all.)
Re: Tech giants sued over deaths of children who mine cobalt
#97>Perhaps the only tragedy greater than the criminal destruction of the environment and the lives of the people of the Congo by these companies is the fact that it would be a rounding error on their income statements to fix the problem. Eh, I don't think giving more money to the third world mining companies is going to guarantee they're going to stop using child labor. The simplest and least risky decision for the tec…
> third world mining companies Glencore headquarters is in Switzerland
Re: Tech giants sued over deaths of children who mine cobalt
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Information, and control . All of the products I can buy may or may not contain this unthetical cobalt. I don't know which, and my personal buying choice doesn't effect anything. What are you proposing, that everyone with a smartphone or a computer be sued? How will that work?
What are you proposing, that if your vendor is sued you don't pay for it?
Vendors that don't get sued can compete better in the market and survive longer, and their prices won't go up (except maybe a little as rents if they have few competitors and those have been forced to raise their prices because they've lost a lot of lawsuits), right?
[EDIT] I'd don't really give a fuck about DVs but I'd love if some of the people DVing my comments on this thread would explain how I've misunderstood orthodox "right"-wing approaches to market-based regulation and commons management, since I don't think I'm claiming anything particularly radical here—quite small-c conservative, actually—and would like to know whether and how I'm missing the mark on it.
Re: Tech giants sued over deaths of children who mine cobalt
#99Then the law needs to change. It's unconscionable for this to be happening. You make the buyers of that cobalt start caring, you'll make the producers of that cobalt start caring.
The same could be said about the Nike shoes you're wearing. By that logic, the company should be sued for buying the Cobalt to make phones. Shouldn't you, the consumer also be sued for buying the phone, containing the Cobalt?
Re: Tech giants sued over deaths of children who mine cobalt
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not convinced that punishing the end consumer would be all that bad. Maybe it would generate actual participation in the market and send a message that they're the ones that fuel it.
Related: what does "punishing" a company mean anyway, fines? Those are paid for by the consumer. So what's the difference? Same as corporate taxation. Taxing and "punishing" companies but pretending that the consumer is not affected is just a political game.
If one company is bad at vetting vendors and loses lots of lawsuits, so has to raise prices, that creates an opening for competitors (existing or new) to do a better job of that, not lose a bunch of lawsuits, and crush them in the market with lower prices. No?
[EDIT] to clarify, you're right if you're talking about flat costs across all players in an industry, but wrong about fines or liability exposure that targets specific behavior, as it's possible to avoid those and retain lower costs (yes, of course, compliance and that avoidance of liability has a cost that does tend to raise prices somewhat, but so does any action aimed at accomplishing some goal, and supposedly companies are more efficient at that sort of thing than government so this should be a relatively cheap way to achieve some end, if you think markets work fairly well in general)