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Comment by PeterStuer | Hacker News Reader

"Because the West has to actually follow environmental and safety regulations"

... that can only exist because they can circumvent them by offshoring all their production to the East and South. If they actually wanted to comply rather than bypass said regulations they would have to curb consumption for which there would not be support.

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Why would there be no support for products if they were made in compliance with environmental and safety regulations? Or why would people not be able to consume them?

Next you're going to tell me that the cobalt used to make batteries for the electric vehicles literally saving the environment right now in the West is being mined by enslaved children in the Congo with archaic hand tools and no PPE under inconceivable conditions.

No, I'd tell you that the cobalt for electric cars is only a tiny fraction of the total cobalt used, and that combustion engines also need a lot, AND that there's less un-ethical sources of cobalt that many manufacturers use.

But that's the nitpicker in me. The general point that our over-consumption drives like 80% of the bad things in the world still stands. The only real solution is to consume less.

BYD and CATL are using cobalt-free chemistry in most of their batteries. I suppose that makes the Chinese evil for stealing the bread from Congolese children's mouths.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery

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