JUNETEENTH: Remember The Slaves Building Our Green Future Today: "What It Brings Is Death"

When it comes to "renewable energy", I don't think human slaves count as renewable. But that's just me - I'm not a Democrat. The book Cobalt Red is a stunning expose of human exploitation at a scale that defies imagination. Author Siddharth Kara risked his life to tell the story. The following review well-summarizes the ongoing tragedy:

I wish the news were better times ahead. Yet, as Siddharth Kara eloquently writes in "Cobalt Red", the exploitation of the people of the Congo in the pursuit of all things 'green, green, and more green' continues unabated, and will certainly get worse before it (ever) gets better. 

Cobalt is the main ingredient in lithium batteries (even more than lithium) and as the wealthier developed West cheers all this clean energy future paradise we will all share, the mostly left behind and poorer than dirt cobalt workers see virtually nothing of the profits their toil brings the rest of us.

What it does bring is death, suffering, ceaseless poverty, and unimaginable deaths in the mines all so that the Tesla owners and wealthy hedge fund managers can stand back, and pick up the spoils without even getting their shirts dirty. 

Whole families of husband, wife, and young teenage sons (and sometimes daughters) work in these mines, risking death and constant threat of mine collapse to bring in the grand total of $5 a day. 

Even those of us who merely use smart phones to make our lives easier, are contributing to the suffering and horrendous lives of those living in the Katanga region of Congo where about 60% of the world's cobalt is contained. Of course the West is not totally to blame. 

The government elite of Congo is also making hundreds of millions of dollars and China, which controls the world's cobalt processing is reeling in billions. 

It is an 1848 California gold land grab being played out in 2020's Democratic Republic of Congo.

Except that at least in 1848 it is said that the workers who sold the picks and shovels became rich.

In the Congo, those who sell the picks and shovels are not much better off than those that carry them in torturous labor.

Perhaps the only way for us in Europe/USA to understand what our behaviors are doing to that part of the world is to have the information drilled into our heads again and again. I wish I had better news to report.

The book Cobalt Red documents an ongoing tragedy - click here for details