Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

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Cobalt Red is a riveting, eye-opening, terribly important book that sheds light on a vast ongoing catastrophe. Everyone who uses a smartphone, an electric vehicle, or anything else powered by rechargeable batteries needs to read what Siddharth Kara has uncovered." — Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air Despite moments like this of Western guilt, in general Kara’s worldview seems to be that West is best. He recounts a conversation in which a Congolese researcher suggests the situation won’t improve unless companies follow minimum standards, “Just like in America.” Kara chooses to leave that comparison there rather than engage with it. Yet corporate impunity is not a Congo-specific problem. Nor is child labour, which also exists in the US. Elsewhere, Kara marvels at how different everything looks after returning from DRC, including vegetables at the grocery store and flush toilets. The dichotomy he creates through exaggerated descriptions reinforces longstanding binaries between “developed” and “underdeveloped,” and is hardly helpful in an analysis of the effects of global capitalism. Neo-colonial ethics Kara’s ability to “exhume” the conditions of the cobalt miners on an international geopolitical platform will elicit interest and proffered change. Go and get this book. Be prepared for what you are reading. It will absolutely forever change you, and I can tell you, that is 100% not a bad thing.

Republic of the Congo. The mined product is useful for global production of lithium batteries for digital devices. I struggled with the density of information. We’re given an immense amount of detail on what cobalt is, how it’s manufactured for use, and what it’s used for. We learn about the mining process from start to finish in several mines, and we learn about the companies’ roles in the processing. I understand why a lot of this was necessary, but it was a bit much for me personally. I found myself tuning out, my mind drifting away as I read. An incisive investigative reporting of the human toll and brutality caused by our need for the latest and greatest technologies in our smart phones and cars. The author does not report from afar or from a library reading reports, this author visits the mines in the Congo at great risk and peril to him and exposes the horrific conditions and practices in "artisanal" mining and the use of children as labor. "Artisanal" for us conjures images of artisans working their craft in a beautiful bespoke way (and we tend to buy brands that promote artisanal methods. My view of this has changed forever when I learned that artisanal mining is the most dangerous, difficult form of mining using hand tools to extract cobalt and other minerals. I hope this book has the intended effect of being a call to action for the corporations who are benefiting from this and turning a blind eye to what is really happening in the pursuit of precious minerals. It should also be a wake up call for us consumers -- do I really need the latest and greatest smartphone? This is an absolute must read. I highly recommend this book.Some 20,000 people work at Shabara artisanal mine in the DRC, in shifts of 5,000 at a time. The DRC produced approximately 74% of the world's cobalt in 2021. Although the scale of destruction caused by cobalt mining in the name of renewable energy is without contemporary parallel, the contradictory nature of mining is nothing new. Some of the most transformative advancements in human civilization would not have been possible without gouging the earth for minerals and metals. The revolution began around seven thousand years ago when people first applied fire to mined materials. Metals were melted and formed into objects used for commerce, adornment, and weapons. Tin was discovered five thousand years ago and mixed with copper to make bronze, the first alloy harder than its constituent metals. The Bronze Age was born, and the advent of metalworking sparked rapid advancements in human civilization. Bronze was used to fashion weapons, agricultural tools, and coins. The first forms of writing developed, the wheel was invented, and urban civilization evolved. It was also during the Bronze Age that cobalt was first used to color pottery. During the Iron Age, iron ore was mined and smelted into steel, which was used to fashion more powerful tools and weapons. Armies were built and empires were forged. During the early Middle Ages, Europeans created the first mining concessions. Governments offered commercial entities the rights to mine minerals from a parcel of land in exchange for a portion of revenues, a system that continues to this day. The global cobalt supply chain is the mechanism that transforms the dollar-a-day wages of the Congo’s artisanal miners into multibillion-dollar quarterly profits at the top of the chain. Although the two ends of the chain could not be more disconnected in terms of human and economic valuation, they are nevertheless linked through a complicated set of formal and informal relationships. The nexus of these links resides in a shadow economy at the bottom of the mining industry that flows inevitably into the formal supply chain. This merging of informal with formal, artisanal with industrial, is the most important aspect of the cobalt supply chain to understand. It is, despite claims to the contrary, all but impossible to isolate artisanal cobalt from industrial production. Apple works to protect the environment and to safeguard the well-being of the millions of people touched by our supply chain, from the mining level to the facilities where products are assembled … As of December 31, 2021, we found that all identified smelters and refiners in our supply chain participated in or completed a third party audit that met Apple’s requirements for the responsible sourcing of minerals.

DRCongo to flourish being a dynamic economic State grounded in normative public administrative values requires demands a shifting in the pluralist public civic civil social zeitgeist transformative. Throughout much of history, mining operations relied on the exploitation of slaves and poor laborers to excavate ore from dirt. The downtrodden were forced to dig in hazardous conditions with little regard to their safety and for little to no compensation. Today, these laborers are assigned the quaint term artisanal miners, and they toil in a shadowy substrate of the global mining industry called artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM). Do not be fooled by the word artisanal into thinking that ASM involves pleasant mining activities conducted by skilled artisans. Artisanal miners use rudimentary tools and work in hazardous conditions to extract dozens of minerals and precious stones in more than eighty countries across the global south. Because ASM is almost entirely informal, artisanal miners rarely have formal agreements for wages and working conditions. There are usually no avenues to seek assistance for injuries or redress for abuse. Artisanal miners are almost always paid paltry wages on a piece-rate basis and must assume all risks of injury, illness, or death. Need another clear picture? Did you know that during the pandemic there was increased pressure put on Congolese cobalt extraction? Billions of us relied, more than ever, on our rechargeable batteries to continue remote working and schooling. It put pressure on the artisanal miners and many more children had to join the mining workforce to keep up with the demand and help their families survive. COVID protocols? What protocols? Non-existent. If they didn’t contract the virus and share it with their family causing death, they still stopped their education to provide for US. The interior is mostly a magnificent and healthy country of unspeakable richness. I have a small specimen of good coal; other minerals such as gold, copper, iron and silver are abundant, and I am confident that with a wise and liberal (not lavish) expenditure of capital, one of the greatest systems of inland navigation in the world might be utilized, and from 30 months to 36 months begin to repay any enterprising capitalist that might take the matter in hand.2 At times this book was difficult to read, not just the subject matter but the heavy use of acronyms and the inconsistent feeling to the timeline. Both makes sense as the author goes to great lengths to make sure he protects those that were brave enough to give him interviews. There is a section that outlines the history of the Congo that would have felt better suited at the beginning of the book so it can be referenced again as the author continues but that is just my preference.Please tell the people in your country, a child of the Congo dies every day so that they can plug in their phones. The evolution of our species towards a transparent dialogue about the true impact of technology on health, the environment and personal freedom has been hindered by political and industrial motivations and strategies that benefit Big Tech at the expense of others. We aim to fix the disconnect that has served to accelerate technological development above reason and sound scientific assessment of environmental impacts and health. ARC received from St. Martins Press and NetGalley in exchange for honest review, opinions are all my own. Thank you!*** Meticulously researched and brilliantly written by Siddharth Kara, Cobalt Red documents the frenzied scramble for cobalt and the exploitation of the poorest people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” This is a grim and not terribly hopeful story about how our ambitions for new and better (and sometimes "greener" -- think electric vehicles) technology play a role in the continued subjugation of people in a distant land. But it's an absolutely vital one for those of us in the developed world to read, because it's our consumerism that drives atrocities like these.

In between history the author does interviews with the local artisanal miners who make up the vast work force in the mines. Many of them are entire families, all having to work to have enough just to put a meal on the table. One of the biggest themes over and over again through the interviews is many just have no choice. There is one interview done with a young man named Makano, who after the death of his father had one option to keep his family fed, go into the mines. It is there at only sixteen he falls and gravely injures himself. It is a common story, teen boys pulled from school to work in the mines for a variety of reasons. An unflinching investigation reveals the human rights abuses behind the Congo’s cobalt mining operation—and the moral implications that affect us all.”Rarely has a book had such a profound effect on my views of the world, but Siddharth Kara’s writing grabbed hold of my heart and twisted it throughout this eye-opening read. At first I was staggered by the heaviness of the data presented, but then I was drawn into the horrors of these artisanal miners lives and my heart broke for them.

Kara investigates its Pyrrhic victory as it exploits the ignoble labor of the miners. Kara’s ability to interview those who work the mines is to his credit but it caused emotional and perhaps physical harm to those who were willing to discuss these conditions and to Kara as well. An insider’s account of the rampant misconduct within the Trump administration, including the tumult surrounding the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.While many in this fight are sympathetic to the suffering, Kara not only brings true expertise, he brings true empathy. Read this book to immerse yourself in both." -- Jean Baderschneider, CEO, Global Fund to End Modern Slavery Unfortunately the bulk of the people who do that mining are “artisanal” miners – they are mining on their own, so to speak; they are not employed by any company. They are extremely poor and have no other options to make money. Their kids could go to school, but even though it’s supposed to be free, it is not funded well-enough for that to be the case and they need to pay. Most families cannot afford to pay, so their kids also have to go to work mining. There are no health or safety standards and when people die or are injured not only is no one held accountable, no one is there to help pay medical bills. What they are paid for the cobalt they mine (putting their lives at risk) is next to nothing. Never in human history has there been so much suffering that generated so much profit that directly touched the lives of more people around the world.”