Paul Driessen, CFACT: Hybrid and electric vehicles are not so “green” and “eco-friendly,” after all. Ditto for cell phones, laptops, wind turbines, solar panels, and technologies that utilize batteries, magnets and other components which require cobalt, lithium, rare-earths, and other metals. Many of those technologies trace their ancestry to mines, mining and processing methods, and countries that don’t come close to meeting modern standards for environmental protection, child labor, or “corporate social responsibility.