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The history of the Congo is one of exploitation since Europeans found a way into the interior of Africa. In the mines there are no protective gear or guidelines given to the miners except for one mine according to the book. 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.Their lives and minds would change if they actually had to go there and SEE the littles mining this dangerous cobalt], and they don't engage in dangerous practices [ again, SO not the truth]. Within a decade of Cameron’s missive, “enterprising capitalists” began pillaging the “unspeakable richness” of the Congo. It is a vast, intricate and willfully ignorant system to perpetuate the continued exploitation of the people of Congo. During the Iron Age, iron ore was mined and smelted into steel, which was used to fashion more powerful tools and weapons.

By the time one traces the chain from the child slogging in the cobalt mine to the rechargeable gadgets and cars sold to consumers around the world, the links have been misdirected beyond recognition, like a con man running a shell game.Cobalt mining in towns like Kolwezi takes place at the bottom of complex supply chains that unfurl like a kraken into some of the richest and most powerful companies in the world. The Copper Belt is a metallogenic wonder that contains vast mineral riches, including 10 percent of the world’s copper and about half the world’s cobalt reserves. They fear tunnel collapsing, working in radioactive water, and speaking out against their meagre wages.

These procedures are especially important in the Congo, where the dangers of speaking to outsiders cannot be overstated. The author brings us with him into Congo, hunting for cobalt, a chemical element needed in rechargeable batteries. Everyone who uses a smartphone, an electric vehicle, or anything else powered by rechargeable batteries needs to read what Siddharth Kara has uncovered. Cobalt is an essential component to every lithium-ion rechargeable battery made today, the batteries that power our smartphones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles.Roughly 2,300 kilometers southeast of Kinshasa at the opposite end of the country is Lubumbashi, capital of Haut-Katanga Province and administrative head of the mining provinces. 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. Remove cobalt from the battery, and you will have to plug in your smartphone or electric vehicle much more often, and before long, the batteries may very well catch on fire. Coal mining powered industrialization, and with it came a troubled history of environmental contamination, degradation of air quality, and exacerbation of climate change. This merging of informal with formal, artisanal with industrial, is the most important aspect of the cobalt supply chain to understand.