decades ago when i was traveling in south east asia, every summer you can see and smell the hazes and smokes of control burns from indonesia islands. back then was the palm oil business gone crazy to satisfy the demand. i think they still have that problem these days but i haven't been out for a long time. eco people got upset.
Yay what's a little global warming, islands disappearing, flood insurance rates skyrocketing, skin cancer rates too.
They don't have much money, so they don't get much attention (or their "masters" aka individuals). Big Biz killing the environment get whatever they want. You haven't been paying attention for the last x nbr of years (i.e. as long as you've been alive).
Hey Bingo, no comment on (Bloomberg vid - post# 128) Singapore's neighbor Indonesia killing its workers to get cheap Nickel for EV's?
Just watched it. My 2 cents - Indonesia is a very poor country dominated by a very wealthy elite, like so many others in the world. Indonesia is also ruled by the military, with a history of violent repression of dissent. This is to say that the ruling elite doesn't give two shits about the working poor there. Their goal is to develop the country and become wealthier and nickel is their way to the top. Chinese industrial sites are well known for cutting corners and squeezing everything they can out of labor. Since these types of sites are relatively new in Indonesia, the government has few standards to enforce. As a consequence, deaths and pollution are expected. This isn't an Indonesian problem, it's the hard and dangerous work of all mining industries, from poor countries to rich countries. Nickel is in demand for batteries to power EVs and many other energy demanding industries. The alternatives are coal (used to power the sites in Indonesia), oil and gas... Worse pollution and not free of tragedies. But nickel is one element of a supply chain that will one day eliminate these polluters. The necessary next step is for battery suppliers to hold these extraction companies responsible for these sites and their labor. It's the government's responsibility to enforce safety and operational rules to protect the environment and the population living around them. It's the governments of the world to force responsibility on product makers to ensure that the supply chain abides by global standards. This hold true for all extraction industries.
While I agree, some countries like the aforementioned Singapore are worse than others when it comes to environmental and human costs. But the former is counter to the feel-good crowd's thinking everything is green about EV's.
Like asking the foxes who guard the henhouse not to eat the hens. The owner of the henhouse doesn't care.
I'm not of those and I'm certainly not a militant environmentalist. I see green energy and battery storage at the undeniable future but it will take many fight, setbacks and tech development to reach that goal.