Tech Waste. An Existential Threat? "Climate Change" is more popular and financially rewarding.

Scientific American: Tech Waste Is a Danger to Us All.

Hardware in general, and smartphones in particular, have taken over our lives so quickly that few of us have had the chance to think about what happens to them when we no longer use them. The answer is that they become a huge environmental and health problem in the Global South’s landfill sites.

We don’t hear much about this problem because it is out of sight, out of mind.

Electronic waste is currently 5 percent of all global waste, and it is set to increase exponentially as more of us own multiple smartphones, laptops and power banks—few of which are likely to be repaired or recycled at the end of their lives.
[.]
There is an almost limitless consumer demand for hardware, and governments do not have bottomless pockets, especially when their green policies are focused on more high-profile issues like carbon emissions.
[.]
Only the manufacturers can fix this, by creating a circular hardware economy.

No, this is not a problem that "only manufacturers can fix". Not any different than blaming manufacturers of plastic and the hysteria of the pearl-clutching-crowd crying for bans on plastic bags and bottles. People use and buy based on their wants, needs and what they feel is a good return for their money. Much of it is packed with plastic.

Do you want that plastic band around your ice cream container so you're assured no one the super market, opened it, licked it and returned it to the freezer? I'm betting no matter how much you hate and want to ban plastic, you like that plastic band.

Look around your house. How much plastic is there is in everything? I'm betting, at some point in their journey, fossil fuels were used in transporting those items to your home. Plastic is versatile and affordable, same for fossil fuel.

Consumers play a large part in tech waste. The question is, is the Tech-Obsessed-Must-Have-the-Latest-Device-Crowd willing to do their part? And a circular hardware economy has a limit, it's not an endless loop.

Tech Waste can wait. We have to solve the Existential Threat of Climate Change first.

I've referenced the stories below in the past and I'll use them again:

Amnesty.org: Child labour behind smart phone and electric car batteries.

GreenTech Media: With demand for cobalt and lithium surging, companies need to be aware of where they’re sourcing from.
-
Scientific American Archived
-
(Feb. 17, 2020 typo fix "is" to "in")

Facebook employee leaps to death from roof of corporate headquarters.

Daily Mail: Facebook employee jumps to his death from roof of company's Silicon Valley headquarters in apparent suicide.

A Facebook employee has died at the company's headquarters campus in Silicon Valley in what police call an apparent suicide.

Horrified bystanders in Menlo Park, California called 911 at about 11.30am on Thursday after an adult male jumped from the top of a four-story building on the 100 block of Jefferson Drive.

Paramedics rushed to Facebook's sprawling campus and rendered first aid, but the victim was declared dead on the scene.

The deceased individual has not been publicly identified pending family notification, but Facebook confirmed in a statement to DailyMail.com that he was an employee.

Zuckerberg may have to install suicide nets like Apple did in China to prevent employees from leaping to their deaths.

"Our AI wasn't programmed to identify suicidal tendencies."

Asylum seekers flying from Nigeria and the Congo to Latin America, then seeking refuge in U.S. How is this happening?

al Reuters:  U.S. dream pulls African migrants in record numbers across Latin America.

Marilyne Tatang, 23, crossed nine borders in two months to reach Mexico from the West African nation of Cameroon, fleeing political violence after police torched her house, she said.
[.]
...a record number of fellow Africans are flying to South America and then traversing thousands of miles of highway and a treacherous tropical rainforest to reach the United States.

Tatang, who is eight months pregnant, took a raft across a river into Mexico on June 8, a day after Mexico struck a deal with U.S. President Donald Trump to do more to control the biggest flows of migrants heading north to the U.S. border in more than a decade.
[.]
The number of Africans registered by Mexican authorities tripled in the first four months of 2019 compared with the same period a year ago, reaching about 1,900 people, mostly from Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)[.]
[.]
Political volatility in Cameroon and the DRC in recent years has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

People from the DRC made up the third largest group of new refugees globally last year with about 123,000 people, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency, while Cameroon’s internally displaced population grew by 447,000 people.

The number of undocumented African migrants found by authorities in Mexico quadrupled compared to five years ago, reaching nearly 3,000 people in 2018.
[.]
Most obtain a visa that allows them free passage through Mexico for 20 days, after which they cross into the United States and ask for asylum.

Few choose to seek asylum in Mexico, in part because they don’t speak Spanish.

Is this massive influx the work of the Soros and Gobalist Cabal? It's time to close the border until the U.S. can construct the proper infrastructure and a manner in how to deal with who wants to immigrate here, and a thorough vetting of their background and identities. A background check no less thorough than the idealized version of the DEMS background check for legal, law-abiding, gun-purchasing American citizens.

At You Tube: Illegal Immigrants Piss Off Biker - Look At All The Dumb A***S WHAT They DIdn't show you. Pay attention to the guy being asked questions around the 3 minute mark. He hates Trump, Trump's policies and everything about Trump. And can't articulate a single solid reason why he "believes" this.

 At the border.

-

Reuters archived story.

How many Dems will condemn Tim Cook's earnings?

Answer to post title: None.

This Is Money: Apple boss Tim Cook's BIGGEST BONUS EVER.

Apple boss Tim Cook collected his biggest ever bonus just weeks before the iPhone maker cut production due to poor sales.

The 58-year-old trousered £12.3million in 2018, including a £2.4million salary and a £9.4million bonus.

It was a 22 per cent pay rise for a year that saw Apple post record revenue and profit.

But it came just weeks before it dropped a bombshell, saying demand for its latest iPhones failed to meet expectations.

I have no problem with any CEO making a ton of money. I do have a problem with corporations with business ties in countries that exploit and use forced child labor for mining cobalt and lithium and any other resource. Don't tell me these companies "don't know". Years ago, Apple had to install suicide nets in their China manufacturing facilities because workers preferred leaping to their deaths rather than work at their job.

Green Tech Media: The Hidden Risks of Batteries: Child Labor, Modern Slavery.

Shockingly, 40,000 children are estimated to be employed in artisanal mines in southern DR Congo, including in cobalt extraction. Verisk Maplecroft’s cobalt risk assessment -- part of its commodity risk service -- reveals that human rights abuses are widespread in the sector and can occur within both industrial and artisanal mines.

Bloomberg: 2018: Apple negotiating to buy cobalt direct from miners in DR Congo.

The price of cobalt has more than tripled in the past 18 months to trade above $80,000 a metric ton. Two-thirds of supplies come from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there has never been a peaceful transition of power and child labor is still used in parts of the mining industry.

Apple isn't the only maker of electronics that obtains cobalt and lithium from countries and sources that use forced child labor. Conducting business with countries and companies that deliberately look the other way on all types of child labor is appalling and must be stopped. What is Tim Cook going to do about it? What are you/we going to do about it? Yes, there's lithium and cobalt in your, and my, lap top, desk top, IPad, phone and everything else. What degree of responsibility belongs to those of us who use these devices?

While all activity or work contains some degree of risk, (simply being alive carries with it the inherent risk of death), and while we can each rationalize what we do in life and assess various degrees of risk we are willing to take, profit should never come at the expense of human life and health. This is mantra to every reasonable, free-thinking individual. But it is held in absolute holy righteousness by The Left. So, why am I not surprised that The Left maintains a silent vigil on this issue when it comes to Tech?

One could correctly call the cobalt and lithium industry the "new" Exxon or Standard Oil. But The Left never will.