This is the most stellar example of misleading advertising I can think of in recent years. It is meant to convey the impression that Greta Thunberg is telling everyone to buy electric cars with cobalt in them from child miners in Congo. First, she has never said that everybody should buy an electric car, and she does not own one herself. Second, while the cobalt mined in Congo has indeed been used in electric car batteries in the past, over half of the new electric car batteries coming from the largest ev makers have no cobalt at all in them. BYD and Tesla are both moving away from cobalt completely. However, if you are still worried about the ethics of using any device that has cobalt in it then you better give up the use of your cell phone and your laptop or tablet computer because they still do have cobalt in them. Not only that but if child labour in Congo is your main concern then you should have been worrying about that twelve years ago when the first reports of child labour in Congo for the mining of rare earth minerals like tantalum for cell phones was first made public knowledge internationally. Tantalum for cell phones will continue to be mined in Congo long after public outcry has forced all the auto makers to stop using cobalt. Oh and one more thing! If you think boycotting electric cars will stop the mining of cobalt think again. Cobalt is also used in the refining process of all fossil fuels. It is used to strip out the sulphur content so that the air we breathe will be less toxic than it otherwise would be. Every liter of gasoline you buy was refined with the help of cobalt, and most of it was indeed mined in Congo. So until gas powered cars cease to be sold your conscience will still be seared. If indeed the though of child miners in Congo does sear your conscience at all. In many cases I have come to doubt that people who think they are "exposing" the tragedy of child mining in Congo actually care as much about the lives of those children as they hate electric vehicles.
