There is a popular political meme going around social media that is misleading and based on false premises.
OK, fine, with that description, I could be talking about pretty much any one of millions of memes going around.
This particular one, however, features two photographs, the first one depicts four strapping, smiling oil field workers with the caption: “These men produce the diesel for my pickup truck.”
The second depicts a bunch of miserable-looking kids supposedly labouring in a lithium mine captioned: “These children produce the lithium for your electric car.”
There are numerous variations on this. Another one depicts the barren landscape of and around what is purported to be a lithium mine compared to an oilsands site in Alberta surrounded by lush green forests and says: “Tell me more about how your electric car is better for the environment.”
First of all, when making an argument, if you want to be taken seriously, it’s best to get your facts straight. In both these memes, the photos meant to denigrate the electric car industry are not lithium operations, but cobalt. Furthermore, cherry-picking one nice picture of an oilsands operation and one example of an ugly open pit mine does not depict the overall reality of either industry.
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Now, cobalt is also used in manufacturing electric cars, and a lot of cobalt is mined in the Republic of the Congo where it is well-known child labour is used, so why be misleading in the first place?
Furthermore, while demand for both cobalt and lithium is growing rapidly due to their application in the electric vehicle industry, they are also used heavily in consumer electronics, cell phones, tablets, laptops, televisions etc.
Plus, diesel- and gas-powered vehicles, by their sheer dominance, rely more on mineral-mining operations than their electric counterparts.
The bigger problem, though, is even if the memes depicted what they purport to depict, they are based on a false dichotomy.
Just because something is bad doesn’t make the alternative good.
I am not making an argument for which is worse. A little digging quickly turns up the horrors associated with each industry, both in terms of environmental impact and human impact.
In the near- to mid-future these problems need to be addressed because neither conventional vehicles nor electric ones are going away any time soon.
These kinds of memes intend to polarize.
But these are complex issues that can’t be broken down into simple good versus bad.
Of course, one of the saving graces of simple memes is making us think about the more complex issues. This one certainly made me think, but not in the way intended.
It made me think about how underhanded people can be in trying to advance their political agendas. If an argument is good, it shouldn’t have to rely on misrepresentation.
There is another potential saving grace to a simple meme.
Is it funny?
No, it’s not.
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editor@interior-news.com
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