The decline of domestic mining means that Americans are outsourcing the environmental and social costs of our inexpensive consumer goods to lower-income nations, where labor is cheap, workers may be enslaved, and environmental laws are permissive or easily circumvented with bribes.
More than 70 percent of the world's cobalt, used in electric vehicle batteries, comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where issues like child labor and sexual violence are prevalent. Nickel for EV batteries is sourced from Indonesia, with mining operations accused of illegally destroying rainforests and Indigenous lands.
Meeting international climate goals by 2030 might require establishing numerous mines for materials like copper, lithium, and nickel for electric vehicles and renewable technologies. Emphasizing responsible domestic mining is vital to address the environmental and social impacts of resource extraction.
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