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

Kara's writing style is very engaging, and it reads pretty quickly (it is under 300 pages) but if you're familiar with the topic it's a really 101 read. While there wasn't much new information for me I think it's a powerfully written and cleareyed intro to the topic and I would recommend it to anyone who has just started hearing about what's going on in Congo. Kara uses a handful of personal stories to really drive home the fact that the people paying the price are people and especially children and those stories are utterly heart shattering (Elodie's story in particular completely wrecked me).

I personally came to the topic following mining incidents in Burkina Faso, different country same disregard for human lives on the part of multinationals, the situation is similar, so I'd say it'll give you a good general idea of the state of mining practices and of how unregulated materials enter the supposedly regulated supply chains across the board even if the individual actors are different.

Safe to say I won't be buying a new device with a rechargeable battery for the foreseeable future, because THERE IS NO ETHICAL SOURCE FOR COBALT. 
That of course, is the least that I can do as an individual. As the author outlines, some of the biggest things that need to happen are actions by companies, the mining companies and the companies upstream that use the cobalt in their products, as well as the Congolese government, all assuming that the value of human life comes before profit motive. 
I hesitate to call this a disheartening read because I'm a lot more angry than depressed. Kara has done an excellent job of detailing the many forms of abuse and corruption that keep the poorest in the Congo unable to find better options than mining for cobalt by manual labour in hazardous conditions with no safety provisions available (which is what artisanal mining means in these circumstances), and simultaneously ensures that they do not share in the massive profits such a product yields in the global economy. Slavery conditions, assaults, illnesses, maimings and deaths would be bad enough, but there's also a detrimental environmental component as there always seems to be with mining. 
I appreciate how often the author acknowledged his data gathering was hampered (unable to name sources for fear of putting lives at risk, unable to access mines or procure statistics because the companies would not permit it); it makes the point put forward in the epilogue that finding a way to safely hear directly from artisanal miners all the more critical, all the more powerful.
 The historical parallels Kara puts forward, of the history of human rights abuses and political manipulation for profit since the dawn of colonization in the Congo emphasizes the stark contrast between what we want to believe about a modern Western society with its tech gadgets and the complete lack of progress, the enduring injustices that are shoring up that system.
Please read this book.  

⚠️SA, child labour, child trafficking, misogyny, racism, forced labour and debt bondage resulting in slavery conditions, child death, child prostitution, major injuries 

Shocking. In the West, we're somewhat aware of the horrible conditions African diamond miners face. We've at least heard of this, including the trivia fact of the deepest mine in the world being a diamond mine somewhere on the continent there. And despite diamonds' wide spread use (well beyond the bling so many associate with them, by some stats that is actually one of the more *rare* uses for them, apparently). many don't really think of this too much.

But our cellphones? Our tablets? Our state of the art electric vehicles? Our "commitment to zero carbon by [insert year]" climate activism? Our ESG corporate policies?

All of these are impacted by the travails Kara uncovers in this biting expose of the Congolese Cobalt mining operations and specifically just how horrid and unsafe the conditions therein are, including the rampant and untracked use of child labor. Here, Kara takes us on an undercover journey from one of the of the region to the other, while protecting his sources as much as possible. It is an alarming look, one that the heads and other decision makers in many of the world's largest corporations and manufacturers need to read and examine the issues it raises in further detail based on this reporting. Even if Elon Musk (Tesla), Akio Toyoda (Toyota), Mary Barra (GM), and Oliver Blume (Volkswagen) won't look into this, perhaps global banking, as part of its own ESG and Zero Carbon initiatives, could look into it from their end and begin to influence the car manufacturers from that side.

In a book full of unimaginable pain and sorrow, a few tales stick out. One of them in particular is that of a man who was injured in the mine, and thus his teenage son was forced to work in the mine for the family's subsistence. Just a week before this father could go back to work, word came from the mine of a collapse. His son died in that collapse and the body remains buried within the mine. Prepare yourself, reader. As illuminating as this text is, stories at least that bad pepper this text like sand on a beach.

The only reason for the single star deduction? Possibly due to the text being primarily Kara's own investigations, the bibliography here is quite scant indeed, clocking in at barely 8% of the overall text when 20-30% is much more common in my experience with other nonfiction advance reader copies.

Overall this is absolutely a book that needs to be read as widely as possible, and one that needs as much attention brought to its issues as possible. Very much recommended.

This is the saddest book I've ever read.

Just as it happens in some industries where the poor are exploited to no end, in the Congo, men, women and children pay the highest of prices in order to gather Cobalt out of the ground.

That Cobalt then goes up a long chain of corruption, neglect and especially greed until it ends up in some of the batteries that power the electrical devices and cars we use in richer areas of the world.

Siddharth does a great job of presenting the history of region, what bought it to this horrible state, the local factions involved in the Cobalt mining industry and what could be done to improve the lives of poorest people on the planet today.

The investigation into the long chain of lack of accountability is often interrupted by heartbreaking stories and interviews.

Somehow, we know that there are monsters in the world who profit off the backs of children yet we are rarely confrunted with such a level of greed and suffering.

Unfortunately, given the current state of the world, the lack of political power in the area and the greed of the economic system, nothing will change for the people of the Congo anytime soon.

Hell is an imaginary place, and given what I've read, the mining regions in the Congo are the closest real thing to it. That I know of thus far.

The book reminded me of a short story written by Ursula K. LeGuin - The ones who walk away from Omelas. I highly recommend you to read it.