| > It's good to raise awareness but it's not recent news. [...] > Child labor in the… [...] Have you read the article? To me –pardon my subjectivity and don't take this as a personal attack please – this sounds like it can can be paraphrased with "I don't care". The article paints a pretty strong picture not only of child labor and slavery but also of the environmental devastation and violence around the harvesting of raw materials in all these countries. It also mentions electric vehicles, which have batteries that make iPhone batteries seem like a drop in the ocean in size comparison, and are celebrated as green progress. > How should the typical westerner deal with these facts? Maybe not buy unneeded batteries and advocate for honest regulation and a stop to reckless growth based on slave labour and environmental destruction? Maybe stop pretending that capitalism would represent liberty and freedom, when it is built on destruction, unsustainability and slave labor? For some reason, people can read such an article and claim that they know anything about reasonable environmental policy a couple of hours later, minutes even. Sorry for the rant, but it makes me sick to follow debate about these topics. Writing this from a device containing the same minerals that the article is about, duh. > Hold the corps to account, vote with your wallet, demand that they reinvest profits in education and betterment and development of these geographic areas. This is a poltical issue on a global scale. As long as it is allowed to reap profit from exploitation, outsource slave labor and environmental destruction and call this "free market", nothing will change. I welcome everyone who reduces his/her participation in the global exploitation of poverty and the environment, but without political action it is all smoke and mirrors. |