Technology and Rare Metals: Put it to Good Use


After reading several articles about technology and the like, it makes me wonder; do we really need any of this? Cell phones, iPads, laptops, televisions, hybrid cars, ext. This is what one article says we can't live without. I agree that televisions are apart of a culture for entertainment, but what about these other things? We are seeing the deterioration of our culture to this technological obsession. One statistic shows that in 2011, 23% of automobile crashes were due to a cell phone. All those rare metals and lives, gone to waste. This quote should put things in perspective, "very big wind turbine[s] produces one megawatt, five turbines will require one ton of neodymium. If wind is going to play a major part in replacing fossil fuels, we will need to increase our supply of neodymium". Instead of putting this element into a cell phone, it should be collected and pooled to spread more of these turbines. Perhaps we should return to the 80's, where all these technological distractions didn't exist, and rare metals were put toward better uses, and not wasted so someone can send a pound (#) sign.


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