QotW: Will potters treat cobalt blue like blood diamonds?

[liambesaw]

2 minutes ago, terrim8 said:

No, the point I am trying to make its that it won't take long for people to find the desired commodity in North America if the value is significant enough to encourage exploration. That is why I used the DeBeer's example. This generally runs into an oversupply situation and then the price of the commodity drops. But we can find and develop things here if needed. Btw, DeBeer's Victor Mine in northern Ontario is finished already and so is Snap Lake in the NWT.  Short expensive mine life.

Of course none of this can change company behavior or foreign government actions with respect to child labour or lax environmental laws. 

And as potters, you're absolutely right- we don't affect the commodity markets - we're too small.  We can decide to not use a product if we know it is produced unethically but that's about it .

The problem though is labeling. How do you know where your cobalt came from? Or all those diamonds I need to hurry up and buy for Christmas!

 

I feel ya, I think you could go crazy if you tried to get ethical with every purchase.  Every store, every experience, every item is now so wrapped in bad juju that there's no way to separate it.  People consume what is in front of them, there are no choices.