Important reading for virtue-signaling electric car-drivers

Important reading for virtue-signaling electric car-drivers
"One of the most comforting fantasies common to affluent liberals is that they are "saving the world" by driving an expensive rechargeable electric car.  
In fact, they are doing the opposite, with their desire to signal their virtue causing intense human suffering on the part of some of the most powerless people on the planet.

...My worries about rechargeable electric cars center on the toxic raw materials needed to manufacture powerful lithium-ion batteries, which are the most expensive component of electric vehicles.  
For one thing, when a battery is spent (and they do wear out after a certain number of recharges), recycling the heavy metals and other ingredients is expensive, dangerous, and absolutely necessary. Putting these batteries in a landfill is the last thing any decent human being wants, but it is far, far cheaper than properly disposing of the time bomb that is a lithium-ion battery.

Of all the raw materials necessary for these batteries, probably the most problematic is cobalt.  
All the smug, affluent drivers of Teslas, Nissan Leafs, and BMW i3s (the most popular models in Berkeley) need to think about how the cobalt in their batteries got to the factory.  
The U.K. Daily Mail reports:

Almost every big motor manufacturer striving to produce millions of electric vehicles buys its cobalt from the impoverished central African state [i.e., the Democratic Republic of the Congo]. It is the world's biggest producer, with 60 per cent of the planet's reserves.

The cobalt is mined by unregulated labour and transported to Asia where battery manufacturers use it to make their products lighter, longer-lasting and rechargeable..."

Read on!