Cobalt Red

How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

De: Siddharth Kara

Narrado por: Peter Ganim

Duración: 11 h y 18 m

Resumen del Editor

Long-listed, New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year, 2023

Long-listed, New Yorker Best Books of the Year, 2023

This program includes an author's note read by the author.

An unflinching investigation reveals the human rights abuses behind the Congo’s cobalt mining operation—and the moral implications that affect us all.

Cobalt Red is the searing, first-ever exposé of the immense toll taken on the people and environment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by cobalt mining, as told through the testimonies of the Congolese people themselves. Activist and researcher Siddharth Kara has traveled deep into cobalt territory to document the testimonies of the people living, working, and dying for cobalt. To uncover the truth about brutal mining practices, Kara investigated militia-controlled mining areas, traced the supply chain of child-mined cobalt from toxic pit to consumer-facing tech giants, and gathered shocking testimonies of people who endure immense suffering and even die mining cobalt.

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 75 percent of the world’s supply of cobalt is mined in the Congo, often by peasants and children in sub-human conditions. Billions of people in the world cannot conduct their daily lives without participating in a human rights and environmental catastrophe in the Congo. In this stark and crucial audiobook, Kara argues that we must all care about what is happening in the Congo—because we are all implicated.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

©2023 Siddharth Kara (P)2023 Macmillan Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“With extraordinary tenacity and compassion, Siddharth Kara evokes one of the most dramatic divides between wealth and poverty in the world today. His reporting on how the dangerous, ill-paid labor of Congo children provides a mineral essential to our cellphones will break your heart. I hope policy-makers on every continent will read this book.”—Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost

"Cobalt Red is a riveting, eye-opening, terribly important book that sheds light on a vast ongoing catastrophe. Everyone who uses a smartphone, an electric vehicle, or anything else powered by rechargeable batteries needs to read what Siddharth Kara has uncovered."—Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air

"Meticulously researched and brilliantly written by Siddharth Kara, Cobalt Red documents the frenzied scramble for cobalt and the exploitation of the poorest people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”—Baroness Arminka Helic, House of Lords, UK

Great book about an awful subject t

This is an eye opening and disheartening look at how greed and suppression of information lead to humans making victims of their fellows.

Best exposure of child labor I have ever read! Ex

Exposes role of China, but not the history of United States in the rape of the Congo.

Thank you for this

Ah, this book was informative, infuriating, thought provoking and a call to action that everyone consuming these products should understand the cost to the people in Africa.

Courage

Siddharth courageously investigates one of the most shameful aspects of our addiction to technology for the sake of it. For the Congolese little has changed since King Leopold, except that their masters are now Asian. Lumumba was wrong about the "West": he forgot that greed and the complete disregard toward fellow humans being are universal and have nothing to do with origin, race or political system.

Horrifyingly necessary.

All great change has come form uncomfortable truths. Told by the afflicted, shared by the empathetic. And eventually, accepted by the masses. Willingly or not.

Sad story.

Excellent investigative journalism. Author could have been more explicit in condemning the Chinese and the government of Congo. He frames most of the argument as a product of western colonialism or capitalism imo. I think it is a must read to help drive change at the bottom of the supply chain. It’s a an impossible sad situation that could be improved with minimal resources.

Listen to this, get others to do the same

If this book doesn't make you weep, then you are made of stone.
There is no "hyperbole" or "incendiary rhetoric" here. Only well-documented facts and unflinching first-hand reporting. Sometimes the truth is inflammatory enough.
Listen to this book, tell other people about the issues it uncovers, and maybe even get someone else to do the same.

Well researched and pointedly presented

The author does not hold back, which is admirable. The irony that I listened to this book on a mobile phone is not lost on me. Our society is navigating a mine field of bargaining between daily convenience and morality just like every civilization before us, but the impact of our footprints does seem bigger and deeper. As a parent of kids the same age as those dying in this report, I cried often through the listening.
I recommend this as a good listen because of the extensive scientific terminology, detail and statistics. I think I would have gotten a bit bogged down in some of those sections had I been reading. As a listen it was extremely informative and interesting. Full stars.

I wish the Author read the book.

I enjoyed listening to the author and his story on a podcast. You could hear the emotion and sincerity in his voice. I absolutely did not like the the person that read this book and the fake Congolese accents. It takes so much away from this important story. Please redo and have the author read it.

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