A review by franmoldaschl
Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives by Siddharth Kara

challenging dark informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

This book isn't enjoyable, but it is well written and desperately important. 

I read it as an environmentalist, and don't think any line captures the need for this book as well as one quoted by a Nun on page 244 of the hardback UK edition I read.

How can a sustainable future be built through sacrificing the very bearers of that future, through depriving children's well-being, and worse even, through depriving children the right to be.

I wish this was fiction, or history, but the enforced labour of children in the Congo is very real, and very present. Lithium ion batteries are not the answer to the climate crisis, and if they're to continue as our interim step, we need to ensure that those producing the raw materials are protected.

Unfortunately, there are no actionable ways to do that at the end of the book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Racism, Slavery, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail