By James Poplar
As someone who is retired and on a fixed income, I am often chided by my progressive friends for driving a truck that is twenty-five years old with close to 300,000 miles on the odometer. The typical refrain is, why are you not driving an electric vehicle (E.V.) that is environmentally friendly, vice your clunker that contributes to global warming? After all, it is “the right and responsible thing to do.”
Yes, I believe that the future of private transportation lies in electric and in other alternative (perhaps hydrogen)–powered vehicles, but for a number of reasons, the timing is not yet right to have the government mandate that I and others own an E.V.
I offer the following rationale:
First, from a national security standpoint, China made a conscious decision years ago to dominate the market in E.V. battery production and technology. This is the same country that makes no bones about surpassing the United States as the world superpower. In addition, China has an abysmal human rights record — what other country harvests the organs from its political opposition? Why would we as a nation want to put our own national security at risk in the hands of a nation determined to impose communism around the globe?
Second, currently, the materials used to manufacture E.V. batteries are typically mined in Africa by child labor under the harshest conditions imaginable. Children are typically forced to sift through piles of material in an effort to secure the scarce materials (cobalt, lithium, and nickel) required for battery production. Children as young as two years old transport, wash, and crush minerals to earn half a dollar a day. The problem of child labor used to source E.V. battery materials has been known for several years, yet we look the other way. In addition, the mining process in not environmentally friendly and in itself contributes to global warming.
