These guides assisted me in gaining access to scores of mining sites, as well as the people who toiled at them. The book clearly shows what business like Apple, Google, Samsung, Dell, and GM (just to name a few) do to cover up their involvement to child labor and preparatory business practices. The equator transects the top third of the Congo, and when it is the rainy season on one side of the equator, it is the dry season on the other. Heavy metals, including cobalt, lead, copper and even uranium, are also in your mother’s blood stream, leeching through the breast milk and they are also flowing through your body as well.

They espoused the great humanity of the slave trade—Africans were not suffering, they were being “saved” from the savagery of the dark continent. Please tell the people in your country, a child of the Congo dies every day so that they can plug in their phones. I was pretty shocked at how many large scale deaths seemingly occur, with sometimes dozens of people killed and that news not making it to global headlines (again I am not sure I believe that Glencore would really bury this information as he incites). The truth, however, is this—but for their demand for cobalt and the immense profits they accrue through the sale of smartphones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles, the entire blood-for-cobalt economy would not exist.

The batteries in almost every smartphone, tablet, laptop, and electric vehicle made today cannot recharge without Kolwezi. When those arguments failed, the slavers claimed they made changes that remedied the offenses taking place on the plantations. I will be using mine until I cannot turn them on anymore and will only be purchasing new when that happens].

Cobalt Red is a riveting, eye-opening, terribly important book that sheds light on a vast ongoing catastrophe. Although conditions for the Congo’s cobalt miners remain exceedingly bleak, there is nevertheless cause to be hopeful. This is a careful and unsensational account of the most inhumane and greedy practices of cobalt mining in Congo. 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.Crucially, Katangan leaders never fully subscribed to the premise that their mineral riches should be shared with the nation. The book talks about the harsh environment that each Congolese has to go through when digging for cobalt. It was a bold, anti-colonial vision that could have altered the course of history in the Congo and across Africa.

Do not be fooled by the word artisanal into thinking that ASM involves pleasant mining activities conducted by skilled artisans. As the "energy transition" ramps up and the planet needs an exponentially increasing quantity of raw materials, books like Cobalt Red are an important insight into what really is needed to make the planet "greener". The Industrial Revolution spurred further improvements in mining equipment—mechanical drills increased the efficiency of mining hard rock, and manual loading and hauling were replaced by electric conveyors, mine cars, and heavy-duty vehicles. It’s mined in the Katanga region, a part of the Congo that has more reserves than the rest of the world combined. No company wants to concede that the rechargeable batteries used to power smartphones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles contain cobalt mined by peasants and children in hazardous conditions.The downtrodden were forced to dig in hazardous conditions with little regard to their safety and for little to no compensation. This life style is made possible because of batteries that use cobalt and are manufactured in China. It's tale is very uncomfortable sitting safely and writing this on a mobile phone containing cobalt but if we don't care to know about this it will continue. Kara also dissects the cobalt supply chain that provides for the world while devastating so many Congolese.

The slaves remained far removed from the British breakfast table until a band of abolitionists placed the true picture of slavery directly in front of the English people.Cobalt is an essential ingredient of the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that power our smartphones, laptops and electric cars. There is a vast disparity between the companies that sell products containing cobalt and the people who dig it out of the ground. Millions of trees have been clear-cut, dozens of villages razed, rivers and air polluted, and arable land destroyed. Kara, who traveled the country, entering mines and speaking to workers at every level of the labor chain, exposes slavery, child labor, forced labor, and other ongoing horrors and crimes.