As President Joe Biden and his legion of progressive minions pose for selfies taken on their iPhones in front of their electric vehicles and clap themselves on the back for being so green, a Harvard visiting professor and modern slavery activist says “the world doesn’t know what’s happening” in the Congo cobalt mines that produce the materials necessary for the batteries that charge their “eco-friendly” toys.
In a now-viral episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Siddharth Kara, author of “Cobalt Red: How The Blood of The Congo Powers Our Lives,” detailed the “subhuman” conditions under which the impoverished Congolese work so people can feel good about taking care of the planet.
According to Kara, there’s no such thing as “clean cobalt.”
(Video: YouTube)
“It’s all marketing,” he told Rogan. “It’s all PR.”
The truth is, the level of “suffering” endured by workers — many of them children — in the Congo is “appalling.”
“They dig in absolutely subhuman, gut-wrenching conditions for a dollar a day, feeding cobalt up the supply chain into all the phones, all the tablets, and especially electric cars,” Kara said.
“Are there any industrialized cobalt mines that use machinery and don’t use slavery and don’t use child labor and don’t use these people that live in unimaginable poverty?” Rogan asked.
“I’ve never seen one,” Kara replied. “And I’ve been to almost all the major industrial cobalt mines.”
Cobalt is crucial in today’s technological world.
“Cobalt is in every single lithium, rechargeable battery manufactured in the world today,” Kara explained. “Every smartphone, every tablet, every laptop, and, crucially, every electric vehicle” requires it.
“And it just so happened that the Congo is sitting on more cobalt than the rest of the planet combined,” the author said.
This latest Joe Rogan Experience podcast is heavy…
If you have a smartphone or electric vehicle (that's 100% of you) then I strongly recommend listening to it.
Thanks for investigating this topic @siddharthkara
— ZUBY: (@ZubyMusic) December 22, 2022
“We can’t function on a day-to-day basis without cobalt, and three-fourths of the supply is coming out of the Congo,” he continued. “And it’s being mined in appalling, heart-wrenching, dangerous conditions.”
With so much of the vital mineral buried in the ground, and with so much cheap labor available thanks to the threat of starvation, the nation of roughly 90 million people found itself the target of a geopolitical conflict — one which the Chinese Communist Party appears to have won.
“Before anyone knew what was happening, [the] Chinese government [and] Chinese mining companies took control of almost all the big mines and the local population has been displaced,” Kara said, placing the people of the Congo “under duress.”
“This is the bottom of the supply chain of your iPhone, of your Tesla, of your Samsung,” he stated.
The revelation led some on Twitter to address the Chief Twit, Tesla founder Elon Musk.
“@elonmusk, I’m a big fan, just got my blue tick,” wrote Glimpse of the Future. “The most recent @joeroganhq podcast about cobalt mining in the Congo is shocking. As the leader of Tesla your company, of which I’m a shareholder, consumes a lot of cobalt. Please address the social injustice.”
Though Musk has yet to respond, Kara did.
“Well said,” he replied, “and I am here to help anyone tech or EV CEO that wants to solve this catastrophe in a comprehensive and genuine way.”
Well said, and I am here to help anyone tech or EV CEO that wants to solve this catastrophe in a comprehensive and genuine way.
— Siddharth Kara (@siddharthkara) December 23, 2022
Republished with permission from American Wire News Service
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Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
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