True Left

Around seventy percent of the world's cobalt is mined in the Central African country, mostly from the southern Katanga area, thought to be one of the ten most polluted places on earth. Reporter Jamal Osman travels to Kolwezi, a city dependent on supplying Cobalt, a critical component for electric cars and rechargeable batteries.  Residents are employed by large multinational companies, or in smaller, and more dangerous artisanal mines. We meet the men who clamber down dark weaving airless tunnels to extract cobalt for as little as $150 per month. But is the paycheck worth the health risks that doctors have uncovered?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt#History

Swedish chemist Georg Brandt (1694–1768) is credited with discovering cobalt circa 1735, showing it to be a previously unknown element, distinct from bismuth and other traditional metals.

See also:

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-false-left/true-left-breakthrough-seriousness-in-environmentalism/msg6940/#msg6940

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-false-left/true-left-breakthrough-seriousness-in-environmentalism/msg9476/#msg9476

This is what happens when you try to green the progressive way (ie. using more Western civilization (electric cars) to solve problems created by Western civilization (combustion engine cars)). The correct way to go green is the regressive way (ie. ending Western civilization (phase out car use altogether, and bring population back down to pre-industrial numbers)).