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

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If you are listening to it on audio Peter Ganim reads Siddharth's words in a measured and immensely listenable tone. Most people do not know what is happening in the cobalt mines of the Congo, because the realities are hidden behind numerous layers of multinational supply chains that serve to erode accountability.

When industrial mines went into lockdown for extended periods during 2020 and 2021, demand for cobalt did not graciously hibernate. It’s a rare, silvery metal that is also used in many of our low-carbon innovations crucial to achieving our climate sustainability goals. Aluminum, tin, nickel, and other metals were used in thousands of industrial and consumer applications.The ongoing exploitation of the poorest people of the Congo by the rich and powerful invalidates the purported moral foundation of contemporary civilization and drags humanity back to a time when the people of Africa were valued only by their replacement cost. Cobalt is a key component of every lithium-ion rechargeable battery, and many Congolese people are suffering and dying everyday to procure cobalt that will be used by the rest of the world. An unflinching investigation reveals the human rights abuses behind the Congo's cobalt mining operation, and the moral implications that affect us all. In this stark and crucial book, Kara argues that we must all care about what is happening in the Congo – because we are all implicated.

Overall I feel this book itself is more 3 stars but I think the author deserves more credit for his efforts to document what really happens behind the scenes of mining in the age of the energy transition.In fact, no one seems to accept responsibility at all for the negative consequences of cobalt mining in the Congo—not the Congolese government, not foreign mining companies, not battery manufacturers, and certainly not mega-cap tech and car companies.

Clearly the conditions in which these people are mining are horrific ("they work in their graves") but the alternative is probably that a robot does it instead if cobalt in the Congo is to be mined safely.Our power was out for about 35 hours over the weekend due to a storm that moved through, downing lines and breaking a pole, leaving a transistor box precariously dangling upside down.