Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTrXk4geQFg
[Music] by night thank you very much for coming here man I really appreciate it oh thank you for inviting me Joe my pleasure um this subject first of all the title of your book Cobalt red and it is out January 31st 31st yeah and how did you what please detail the journey that you went on to to write this book and why it's of concern to you yeah okay well um I started traveling to the Congo um five years ago I've been doing research on slavery and child labor for about 20 years uh traveling all around the world documenting slaves and child laborers human trafficking um and this came across my radar um maybe seven years ago people started talking in the field about Cobalt Cobalts and the batteries it's in the Congo the conditions are horrible and I had no idea I never heard of this so I started planning to take trips to get down there and I took my first trip um back in 2018 um my plan was I thought I would try to lay the groundwork to do some academic research um and the things I saw there were so appalling and heart-wrenching and urgent that uh I changed my Approach I thought people need to know about this um I need to I need to write a book uh and so I started planning more trips and I just kept going back and the reason this is important Joe and we can dig into this in more depth um throughout the whole history of slavery I mean I'm going back centuries never never in human history has there been more suffering that generated more profit and was linked to the lives of more people around the world ever ever in history than what's happening in the Congo right now and the reason I say that is this Cobalt that's being mined in the Congo is in every single lithium-ion rechargeable battery manufactured in the world today every smartphone every tablet every uh laptop and crucially every electric vehicle um so you and I we can't function on a day-to-day basis without Cobalt and three-fourths of the supply is coming out of the Congo um and it's being mined in appalling
heart-wrenching dangerous conditions um and so that's why people need to know because uh by and large the world doesn't know what's happening in the Congo it's something that people sort of know peripherally that you know that they call them conflict minerals and you know they know that that they're coming from an area of the world that's very poor but I don't think people are aware of how horrible it is there has been have been some documentaries that have been done on it and they're all terrifying yes so so conflict minerals was phase one and that's actually not Cobalt um what is what what's term what does it refer to conflict so conflict minerals uh also called the 3tg minerals are 10 tungsten tantalum and gold um and those are in the Eastern Congo and that um catastrophe started uh around the year 2000 uh late 1990s 2000. um shortly after the Rwandan genocide um the militias moved in and Eastern Congo is sitting on some of the largest reserves in the world of those three TG minerals especially tantalum and those are all used in microprocessors and you can think back to you know around the year 2000 mobile phones first started coming out and gaining traction I still remember my little star tack flip phone that I had from Motorola you remember that sure uh and all that Supply was coming out of Eastern Congo militias and Warlords were forcing the local population at gunpoint machete point to dig this stuff out and it was flowing up into the formal supply chain into mostly those first generation cell phones and that became known as conflict minerals uh Cobalt started later Cobalt really took off about 10-12 years ago and it's in another part of the country in the mining provinces in the southeast of the Congo and Cobalt took off because it was started to be used in Lithium-ion batteries to maximize their charge and stability and it just so happens that the Congo just as it was sitting on more than half the world's reserves of Colton and of course a lot of gold and diamonds and other things is sitting on more Cobalt than the rest of the planet combined and it's in a small little patch of the
Congo Southeastern Corner a part that used to be called katanga and uh before anybody knew what was happening Chinese government Chinese mining companies took control of almost all the big mines um and the local population has been displaced uh is under duress and they dig in absolutely sub-human 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 and we're looking at a video now Jamie what is this the Minds What's his video so I think so this is so crazy to see this is the bottom of the supply chain of your iPhone of your Tesla of your Samsung I mean I'm just naming those companies right it's all of them right all of them we're not just picking on them and here's what you need to know Joe about this video I was the first Outsider to get into this mine uh and that's why it's just a really short video that I was able to take this is an industrial Cobalt mine where there's not supposed to be one artisanal minor now that's the term used for people who are just digging by hand as opposed to tractors and excavators there's not supposed to be one here that's what the story is told at the top of the chain this mine and I can name it it's called shibara there's not supposed to be one artisanal Miner here according to the consumer-facing tech companies and EV companies buying this Cobalt lo and behold I walk into this place and this is what I see there's more than 15 000 human beings crammed into that pit digging by hand and if you have sound you hear the mallets you hear the shouting you hear the the grunts it's a massive Humanity you might expect to see a scene like this so there's a term that gets used clean Cobalt there's no clean Cobalts not real no no it's all marketing it's all PR it's a fiction just like that place there's not supposed to be any artisanal mining there it's all done industrially that's the that's the story told at the top of the chain and people assume people I mean the marketing teams at Big Tech and EV companies assume well who's going to go down there and actually walk
into the place and grab a video that shows no it's actually all raw human force that is clanking that Cobalt out of the ground so there's no clean Cobalt I there's not a single company on planet Earth that makes a device that has a rechargeable battery in it that can reliably and justifiably claim that their Cobalt isn't coming from sources like that and that's the truth that needs to get out there that's the truth people need to understand um because this is a story that goes back Generations there's these fictions told at the top of the chain about what conditions are like at the bottom and Truth Seekers have to go find that truth and Enlighten civilization so that people people get agitated about it and want to do something about it so there's no clean Cobalt let's just make that totally abundantly clear uh and anyone that claims otherwise uh is either peddling in falsehoods or is recklessly ignorant of the truth 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 I've never seen one and I've been to almost all the major industrial Cobalt mines here's why I say that number one they all or almost all will have scenes like that on them thousands of individuals clanking away for a dollar or two a day okay they don't have uh safety equipment all that stuff that Cobalt's toxic toxic to breathe and they're breathing it in all day no masks no masks filtration no gloves no half those guys are in flip-flops all right so um uh almost all the industrial mines will have scenes like that so that's number one they'll say they're no artisanal miners there no children there and if you like zoom in you'll see that amongst that sea of humanity there are thousands of kids teenage boys in this case because that requires a certain amount of force to to Clank away in that pit um number two there are hundreds of other artisanal mining sites scattered in the mining provinces outside of industrial mines
the artisanal miners in the industrial mines and then just on the other side of the fence there'll be a sea of humanity digging there as well because it's not like at the fence The Ore body stops there's copper Cobalt other things outside as well so there'll be hundreds of sites where there are hundreds of thousands of people across the mining provinces digging um all that production is sold right back to the industrial mining companies so it enters their supply chain as well and then so they take what they extract with Industrial Equipment artisanal miners inside the mine artisanal miners including children outside the mine it all gets dumped together into the same batch of acids to process and then flows up the chain and again no one can reasonably claim that their Cobalt even if they say that industrial mind totally clean don't believe what Siddharth is saying that's a that's a made-up fake video they can't demonstrate reliably that all the other Cobalt being dug up by kids and thousands of sites across the mining provinces isn't also flowing into their supply chain is there another source of cobalt in the world that's ethically supplied so um last year so 2021 is the last year there's data about 72 percent almost three-fourths of the world's supply of cobalt came out of a small patch of the Congo and then there's like three percent Russia three percent Australia three percent Morocco you know there's everyone else is three percent um and I don't know what the conditions are there I imagine in Australia mining follows standards of dignity and decency and labor and sustainability and so on um but there's not enough Cobalt outside of the Congo to meet demand and demand projections are four or five six hundred percent increase in Cobalt demand in the next decade or two primarily being driven by adoption of electric vehicles each battery pack in an EV requires up to 10 kilograms of refined Cobalt that's a thousand times what's required for a smartphone so huge demand uh as the world
transitions from uh internal combustion engines to electric vehicles which is a net good thing except for the people in the Congo uh so there's not enough other Cobalt out there even if all the non-congo Cobalt was perfectly sourced there's not enough other Cobalt out there to meet demand these companies that we talked about that use all this stuff whether it's electric vehicle companies or cell phone manufacturers obviously they're aware of this yes no question they have to be have they made any attempts to mitigate this in any way the truth Joe is no not sufficient efforts most of what is done is PR statements marketing all these companies will say we have zero tolerance policies on child labor we ensure standards of dignity and human rights for every member of our supply chain down to the mining level they'll all say this down to the mining level um and they say it uh and they may throw some money at the odd NGO or uh Coalition or Alliance that's meant to be working on these things nothing's actually happening on the ground uh and that's what my book will demonstrate you know as as I take the reader on the journey from place to place mind to mind um there's this fiction that exists outside of the Congo of what companies are doing and what the conditions are like and then there's the reality um underneath the those layers of obfuscation there's the reality there's the truth on the ground um and not one company not one business Alliance not one uh entity up the chain is doing remotely enough to ensure that the the dignity and human rights of the people of the Congo not to mention the environment because although mining companies are just polluting and clear-cutting forests to build and expand mines they're not doing nearly enough to respect the people in Earth of the Congo while we outside enjoy our you know renewable gadget-driven lifestyles when you first started researching this book and when you first were aware of this issue what was the difference between your initial perception versus
what you found so going in um I was expecting to see some child labor um uh poor working conditions and probably some poor environmental practices and that first trip hit me like a Thunderclap and I've seen a lot okay I mean I've done research in more than 50 countries in the grit and the grime and the misery and the sub the underbelly of humanity and it hit me like a Thunderclap because the scale was beyond anything I would have imagined there are hundreds of thousands of people tens of thousands of children caked and toxic Grime and filth digging this uh vital mineral out of the ground in medieval conditions it's like going back in time you know you imagine what mining was like three or four hundred years ago uh or the early days of coal mining you know it's that bad uh and worse because we're supposed to be living in this enlightened era uh so the scale of it shocked me the severity shocked me um to see kids up to their shoulders caked in this filth and grime and toxic I mean to see teenagers walking around with babies on their back all inhaling this toxic um Cobalt dust um to see them barely scraping by on a dollar a day two dollars a day and then as I as I interviewed these workers um I use the term worker they're not workers at all they're oppressed degraded slaves um as I interviewed them the the level of injury uh broken legs shattered spines um toxic contamination cancers birth defects uh the what's happening to the people there and then the the most heart-wrenching thing of all there's probably um 10 to 15 000 tunnels I think I even sent you guys one or two videos of of what these tunnels look like um The Artisan might as well dig tunnels 30 40 meters down to get to some of the higher grade deposits
um and they don't have supports Rock bolts ventilation shafts anything like that and those tunnels collapse every week in the Congo a tunnel collapses and everyone is down there 30 40 50 men and boys boys meaning kids are buried alive and when I started hearing those stories and I heard them on my first trip I it just ripped me apart because I thought this is the bottom of trillion dollar supply chains when I plug in my smartphone I don't have an electric car but if I did when I plug that in I'm plugging in that level of suffering and death I mean I can't imagine a more horrid way of dying than being buried alive and they're down there trying to get that dollar or two because that's the difference between eating and surviving and not uh and that that's what I wasn't anticipating just this level of severity and if you're if your listeners are familiar with you know what it was like in colonial Africa and in the Congo during the Belgian times I mean I thought I was back and and King Leopold's regime where there's just utter disregard for the humanity of of the people in the Congo all that matters is the loot all that matters is the loot the resource get it out make money and to hell with the population to hell with the people there uh they're either a uh efficient slave labor force or they're just in the way uh but there's loot in the dirt and we need that loot and that's that's the dynamic down there this must have been so difficult for you to to grasp and to report on and just to like what was it like for you to just experience this uh Joe it's you know I haven't actually this is the first time I'm talking about it like in any sort of extended way I mean I wrote my book um much of the pandemic was me just was me writing uh and and that was hard you know because there's a lot I had to relive um uh I take the reader on a journey um uh you know in college we all read Heart of Darkness Conrad and that's the first Belgian horror a Congo horror you know was the for rubber
uh and a I'm gonna answer your question but there's a painfully powerful bit of History here that people people need to know so Leopold got his hands on the Congo in 1885 personal property he owned the whole thing his personal property King Leopold of the belgians um and the uh car bends invented the car 1885 internal combustion engine it had um a steel clad wooden Wheels couldn't go very fast before those things fell apart and then in 1888 this chap Dunlop invents a rubber tire and now the whole car Revolution is taking off because you can actually drive those things far and fast and the Congo happened to be sitting on one of the largest rubber tree forests in the world so Leopold deployed this mercenary Army to enslave terrorize and torture the population to get rubber out of the forest the loot bring it up the chain and turn it into tires and he walked away with billions of dollars doing this um but that was the first car Revolution that led to Horror in the Congo and Conrad was in the Congo in 1890 he saw this that's what inspired Heart of Darkness so now we come across the second car Revolution coming to electric vehicles and wouldn't you know it that once again the Congo is sitting on more of this necessary crucial mineral Cobalt than the rest of the world combined and it's that same thing happening all over again um latest chapter and it bearing witness to that and knowing what became came before right that this isn't just one isolated thing oh new problem let's fix it that it's been happening for generations to the people in that part of the world in the heart of Africa um having that in mind and and bearing witness to that has been just devastating and uh as I said I I've not really been talking about it I've kind of feared having to talk about it because there are memories that I've kept really deep down except when I wrote um so I structured my book a bit like Heart of Darkness you know you go up River to find Curts Kurtz reveals a certain truth
um there's one Road in the mining provinces that goes up Road and I take the reader up that road to an event that I think reveals the truth and it just gets darker and Bleaker as you travel up Road and uh the things I've saw I saw and the things I've seen man they just they hurt they hurt because I know it's like what kind of economy can transform the degradation of innocent impoverished children into shiny phones and cars you know and we are living lives that are so disconnected yet intimately connected to that horror um and it it's just been look if if what I do can give voice to what's happening there to the people living there who are otherwise crying into an abyss then it's all worth it to me uh and if some good comes of it uh God willing there will be some good that comes to this journey um it'll be worth it to me but yeah to answer your question it's it's taken a toll couldn't even imagine and when you first started doing this how did you gain access how did you get in there and how much resistance did you experience in trying to report on this it seems like it would be a very dangerous thing for you to do because the consequences of this information getting out there oh yeah yeah it uh these are heavily guarded secrets because there's so much money at stake and one does not just Waltz into the Congo's mining provinces and start poking around and asking questions and um that's a one-way ticket to a very Bleak outcome um I think you know it took me 18 years of other Research into slavery and child labor to be ready for this uh if if I had come across this in year one or five or whatever I'd have botched it up uh or not even known how to go about it um uh but the the most important thing is ground relationships um and so I took some time building ground relationships with people who could um guide me safely get me into mining areas safely uh who I could put my life
in their hands and know that uh they were going to use good judgment um so it's about trust and relationships on the ground first and foremost um and and then you know through those relationships I was able to get into um deep into the mining areas mines that are controlled by militias Minds that are controlled by the Republican guard I mean you have every face and facet of gigantic industrial Minds there are as big as big as a European city uh and then just just swads of open terrain that are being dug up by local villagers you know you have everything down there but the ones that are most heavily guarded the big mine and you know some of them I never got into try as I might I could never I mean there's always they call fardc the the Army down there and they they're just guys with kalashnikovs there'll be 50 of them at the entranceway and you I I never got in but I would talk to the people who worked there back in their villages um and some of the industrial mines I did get into and of course the open terrain artisanal sites I could get to but it's all about um I had to be very careful um um fortunately um there are a good number of Indians in the Congo so I could blend in um and didn't really stick out um uh so that helped uh in my movements in the mining provinces um I traveled very lean um oftentimes we'd have to move in a hurry um from one place to another one Village to another uh everything I was willing to leave behind I had my passport velcroed to my calf muscle you know like it that like I If we had to go in a hurry um and once or twice we did that I needed that like everything else can is just is Expendable but you don't want to get stuck in the Congo without you know your documents um I mean the number of checkpoints I said there's just one road and that thing is so heavily guarded and the number of checkpoints just you pull up let me see your documents let me see this let me see that um go through your bags go through your stuff and then you know move along
eventually you might have to uh offer someone they call it a cold drink all right if you give me a cold drink I can go through first time someone said that to me I said now where the hell do we get a cool drink out of here we're in the middle of nowhere no no cold drink means uh payage toll that's interesting euphemism yeah so um so it's it's I I had to rely on local contacts to get to to get around and use my own experience and judgment about how far to push uh and when not to push what what kind what was what did you use as an excuse to be there so yeah I had a range of cover stories um uh when I'd go into mining areas um you know as I mentioned there's some Indians down there um some of them are mineral Traders some of them are laborers many of them run hotels and guest houses so I could be a guy Indian guy looking to get into mineral trading um looking to invest in transportation there's so much um need need meaning industrial need to to get trucks and transport all this stuff that's coming out of the ground out of the country and up the supply chain um uh with colleagues or government officials that I met I was myself which is a researcher from America you know I I was upfront about it and I needed to be there are times when I needed stamps and signatures of government officials um uh to keep myself safe uh and by that I mean in the in in the scenario in the worst possible snooze where I'm in a remote mine and there's some guys with kalashnikovs and machetes coming after me um one of the first things my guide said is we need to get the Stampin signature of someone from the governor's office on your documentation so we can show that because that means you're you've got permission you're under the watchful eye of the governor and so they can't kill you they're just going to send you away and that that advice saved my life on more than one occasion um uh having that Stampin signature and so so with government people I was who I was with ngos I was who I was uh when I got into mining areas
um you know to get access or to get into Cobalt marketplaces I would be maybe be a mineral Trader or some investor or someone looking to help transport minerals and um but yeah those were those are my stories so as you entered into this world were you aware that you needed all these signatures how did you go about getting no I I I had no idea so one of my one of my guides on my first trip uh before we went into the Cobalt you know into the mining areas you landed into a town called lubumbashi which is the head of a province called hokitanga Province Old Colonial town now it's the mining capital in the Southeastern part of the country so that's where you know there's some government buildings and um as I talked through my plan what I wanted to try to achieve um what I wanted to try to see my very first guide said okay we need to go and just you have to explain this to someone in the governor's office and hope that they'll give you your signature their signature and stamp on it's called engorgemon the prison charge commitment to protect um documentation um he said just go and make the case and try to get that Stampin signature because we'll need that we may need that if you want to go into these places you you're you that will save your life uh and he was right on that very first trip uh I was in a mining area north of a town called cambov kids everywhere we had done our sort of Recon that it was clear of militias that day you know that was always planning when I went into these areas pre-planning um to minimize risk and I was talking to some kids um it was two two girls they're probably 14 and 15 and you know they each had babies on their backs as they were in this trench digging Cobalt um and I was walking down the trench to a group of boys this one boy has a t t-shirt said AIG and I thought to myself first of all that there's an AIG t-shirt out here you know blew my mind and I remembered like that that was one of the big Financial companies had to be bailed out in the
2008 financial crisis 150 billion dollars or something and I thought man that that kind of money here you know what a difference it could make um anyway so I was talking to those kids and suddenly there was gunshots uh and they knew what was happening they all done jumped into a trench and I turned around as me and my guide and there's a pack of guys with kalashnikovs machetes running at us and they operate these militias operate in little units he'll be a guy you know the uh head of the group uh and then there's maybe you know 10 15 guys they call them militia they call them Commandos various names um so they started coming at us um and immediately started roughing me up grabbed my backpack threw my stuff on the ground um started kicking us around demanded to see my phone to see if I was taking photos like they know that there are people who are trying to figure out what's the truth around here and um I looked at my guide at the blood drained from his face and he very quietly and calmly told them he has some he has a signature um and I my stuff was all on the dirt at that point um I found the folder that had that precious piece of paper under the boot of one of these guys I pulled it out showed it to the Commandos leader um that kind of calmed them down enough that they let us they you know walk out of there but it would have gone the other way um but my guide knew you know that's what I mean like you it's about those ground relationships people know their world I can't go in presuming to know that world how to navigate it how to be safe how not to cause harm inadvertently I mean all these things go through a a researcher's mind um but he knew that we might need that and it turns out um on that day man uh you and I wouldn't be having this conversation I think if uh if I hadn't followed his advice how did you get the confidence of these people to let you do this and are there people there that are sympathetic to what you're doing because they want the truth to come out you said it
there are you know there's not much Civil Society in the Congo um but there's this there is a small Civil Society there you know local activists little ngos they have to be very careful um in how they operate uh um so they don't get on the wrong side of the wrong officials especially the mining sector mining is everything to Congo 70 80 percent of the government's budget is coming from mining um uh so um I I just speak from the heart I I want to find a way to help you amplify your voices because no one's listening no one even knows to look over there um or not enough people know to look over there let alone take an interest and start listening and I'm here to help bridge the gap to form some connective tissue between the whole world out there that cannot function without you and and the truth that you're experiencing uh and that's why I'm here so I'm in your hands um you tell me what to do I'll do it you tell me how to stay safe that's what I'll do uh I'd like to see the truth I like to talk to people I want to bring those voices to the outside world but I'm in your hands um and I think just speaking from the heart and conveying my genuine interest Above All To Do no harm uh and to try and uh a shine light in this Heart of Darkness and then be bring those voices out of the country um to a broader world and that's what they want you know the the the the worst feeling in the world or one of the worst feelings in the world has to be to be in the midst of immense suffering and feel that no one can see you no one can hear you no one even cares I mean to cry into silence um uh and so that to have a chance to feel that someone will eventually hear you I think you know that's what I came hoping uh to try and Achieve and um there were enough guides enough people enough locals who who trusted me I mean I had to trust them but
um the more important trust went from them to me because I could be someone who was Reckless who was careless who was after his own thing um who was in it for for me uh um and could cause so much more harm um uh or or just take from them and and leave yeah and that's not me and I think that you know as I developed relationships more and more people uh although it's a small number you know felt that and felt that um kinship with me so when these Commandos came in and they were shooting guns and and screaming at you were they concerned that you were there to expose the conditions that's right um you know the the big anxiety for everyone up the chain is the truth and um so many people are playing their part in suppressing the truth you know it's not just the marketing departments at consumer facing Tech and EV companies they're doing their part to suppress the truth but it's all the way down to little Commando units and militias that have their stake in this game and they want to suppress the truth um and they're often going to be they'll often be on the payroll of a mining company you know um keep people out because what happened was you know just like I first heard about this probably back in 2015 um and it took me a couple of years to figure it out and then get in there you know in 2018. you know the journalists have been down there there have been some journalists who have gotten in there and they've been some stories written um especially around 2016 2017 2018 2019 those few years you know people were getting in there and getting a little piece of it and coming out and writing a story um and so people on the ground got more anxious about that so there's a lot of um uh anxiety about journalists researchers ngos kind of coming in and trying to find the truth and and so there's the level of
um security especially in the last few years has has uh increased significantly to try to keep to keep people out because the minute you know once the the voices of the people of the Congo start emerging and a book or a documentary or stories get written what they'll be a critical mass right eventually it'll pass some threshold where enough people say wait a minute what are you talking about what's going on here um I don't want to I don't want to feel that when I plug in my phone there's some kid in the Congo dying for it or that here I am trying to make a green Choice buying this electric car but the patch of Congo where these minerals come from the trees have been clear-cut the rivers have been polluted the air air has been polluted like why why is my green Choice black and red for them um that doesn't seem right so no one up the chain wants that day to arrive or they want to postpone it as long as possible I think it's inevitable that eventually the companies Atop The Cobalt chain will have to accept the truth and then respond to it um but they want to push that out as far as possible because uh well for reasons I don't actually understand and I'll tell you that candidly Joe I don't understand why these companies because as we as we agreed they all know what's happening down there that's why they've got their marketing departments on it they all know what's happening down there why is it that they just don't want to solve the problem I it's not complicated it would probably cost them a rounding error on their balance sheet to just invest in treating those people with the same respect and dignity as the people in corporate headquarters they're all part of the same chain it's not that the Cobalt goes to the Moon it goes to these companies so they're linked but they don't accept responsibility for them and for some reason they feel it's okay to treat them and the world around them like trash and I think deep down inside no one will ever come out and admit it but I think there's only one answer to the question why haven't they fixed the problem yet
and that is because it's poor wretched Africans that no one cares about that's the truth and that's been the truth for centuries hasn't it uh going back to the slave trade going back to the colonization of Africa it's it's in it's embedded in the framework and structure of a global economy that again it's about the loot and the money and the people there are either fit to be brutes or to be moved out of the way uh that's the only answer to the question why companies that are rolling in profits beyond beyond measure wouldn't say hey hey the bottom of this supply chain like this thing that's in our batteries that we really really need um conditions there are pretty bad and that that's not acceptable because we claim that we uphold human rights and dignity and sustainability all the way down our supply chain let's send a few people down there and and work on this has has one CEO of any of these companies ever stepped foot at the bottom of their own supply chain to see for themselves what's happening there I mean why is it that I had to go I'm not running a tech company I'm not running an EV company yet I felt somehow responsible for what's happening down there how come they don't feel responsible enough to take a trip one trip on their private jet down there to see for themselves oh wait a minute uh there are thousands of people in this artisanal in this industrial mine uh working in like ancient old world miserable conditions let's do something about that how about some PPE for everybody how about a reasonable wage so they don't have to bring their kids in to work just to survive how about eight hours a day instead of 12. um how about we invest in some schools and some public health clinics while we're here so that kids can go to school why don't we help Electrify this place do you know that that part of the Congo that is home to more of the most crucial mineral for rechargeable energy than the rest of the planet combined doesn't even have electricity
you go around in the Villages there's just there's no electricity uh I mean we can go on and on right so so the point is they need to understand it accept it accept responsibility for these people at the bottom of the chain treat them in the same way that they treat people in headquarters have you had any conversations with any of these people in Tech or in EV vehicles uh I hope I hope I will be invited to do so maybe after this book comes out and um uh and if it gets enough attention um I I will gladly gladly engage on solving this problem I am a humble servant to any company that wants to just understand and fix their Cobalt supply chain is there any possibility that the CEOs and the people in upper management are not aware of the scope of this problem it's hard for me to imagine that they're not aware so do you think it's just a convenient ignorance or is it a diffusion of responsibility because they came into this company when all this already existed yeah interesting question I think um I think some of it is business as usual until someone forces them to think differently um I I think another part of it um is it's easy not to accept responsibility because they're so far away and there's so many levels in the supply chain between toxic pit in the Congo and shiny showroom in New York and London and you know Beijing right that they're separated by layers and layers uh of a supply chain I mean that's how the global economy works um so some of it is well uh it's their responsibility and they point the finger Downstream right the battery maker should worry about this and the battery maker will point and say no the Cobalt Refinery should worry about it the Cobalt Refinery say no The Mining Company should worry about it the mining company say no the Congolese government should worry about it and on down the list until the last finger is pointed at the kid caked and filth in the pit so no one's accepting responsibility um I think look I think let's be charitable and say maybe the CEOs of these companies aren't completely aware of the scale and severity I certainly wasn't when I first went there uh it
wasn't my business to Know It uh but okay let's say maybe they are not aware of this the the absolute scale and severity of it um although they should be uh all right now that the truth is out let's see are they willing to actually work on this problem and I I will any CEO wants to go see what the bottom of their Cobalt supply chain looks like I I will take them I will take them come with me we'll fly economy or I'll go in your jet we'll go comfortably either way I will take you let's let's go down and see this is where your Cobalt's coming from now that you've seen the truth um let's fix this problem because they're these companies have Geniuses who have revolutionized Our Lives solving dignity at the bottom of a Cobalt supply chain is a simple proposition relative to the problems they probably solve every day but they would have to address it in Mass they would have to address it very publicly they would have to admit to this problem and they'd have to publicly state it and make everyone aware the consumer aware that these things that we enjoy that make our lives so convenient these technological Marvels that have revolutionized our world at the bottom of that yeah is slave labor and child labor yeah I I think you put your finger on something very important because the first question they would be asked is well how long have you known right right and that's the problem that's the problem and so to admit it would be to admit guilt in at least some way or willful ignorance or a pretending that they don't know yeah that's right all of the above plus a callous disregard for their fellow human being you know that because it's not shoved in their face it's not that's right that's right because they show up at Cupertino and they're in this beautiful industrialized building and everything's technologically magnificent and isn't it fascinating the riches that stand atop the shoulders of some of the poorest and most degraded people in the world it's it's bizarre but it speaks to The Human Condition it speaks to what we are we're so complicated and
twisted yeah yeah we are um and it's not like this is a new phenomenon right I mean riches have been built across the global North on the shoulders of degraded people in the in the global South for centuries right um we just like to pretend that that's not the case today when it might be the worst case you know the interesting thing is um in some ways this truth that we're talking about is uglier and more violent and harmful than slavery in the 1700s because we claim to live in a time when everyone has equal human rights right and we're all created equal and treated equal and you know it's that it's the hypocrisy that makes it so much more repugnant you know back then it's like well they are uh fit to be slaves and it was the way of things and that doesn't excuse it you know but the violence had some kind of mental and uh social even religious justification um centuries ago and it took a band of enlightened people to say no that that's not right and abolitionists fought and fought and fought and won freedom for slaves in the world or did they you know because now we live in a time where you can't legally own another person or exploit them like a slave any on any patch of this planet and yet and yet it happens at the bottom of our global economic order more than people realize and what's what's important about Cobalt is it's kind of the distillation of centuries of this Ark um because as I said there's never been a a single example of of worse suffering that generates more money and touches the lives of more people around the world than than this right here the intense hypocrisy of this age we're living in especially in this country where we're so focused on social justice and we're so focused on equality and and treating people with kindness and dignity and the fact that we're talking about this and communicating on this on devices that were constructed by slaves yeah that's right I mean foreign that's so insane it's so hard to admit
yeah it's hard to even it's it's I believe every word you're saying but there's a part of my mind that doesn't want to accept it I I I I understand that it could be possible that's right like that we're capable of it right you know and it's surely we're better than this now right I mean haven't we haven't we fought enough fights shot enough blood um and made enough progress you know that that we're better than this that this what we're talking about today Canton shouldn't exist it shouldn't be possible um but the fact that it is uh it speaks to that how little has actually changed in some ways and the fact that a small handful of Brave journalists are bringing this to light in in light of so many problems that we know about in the world that get all of our attention in the news every day that this is one of the most horrific yes and it's it's very very difficult to get information about it by Design I mean by Design you know it's and it's all it's been that way it's it's and it always starts with a handful though Joe I mean great change starts with a handful of people who who stand up and say this this won't I can't tolerate this we shouldn't tolerate it Humanity should be better than this um and if they're lucky and persistent enough you know they build a social movement that can achieve some progress you we see this throughout history the history of Human Rights um starts with some small group of people who want to see something change something important change and build a movement around it but it starts with truth yeah it has to start with truth it can't you the dispelling the fictions that power tells tells us so that things can stay the same um it always starts with Shining Light into that darkness and bringing ground truth out into the world that truth is so horrific though you could see how it would be human nature for the people involved in it to try to suppress it and ignore it and to try to figure out a way to keep this information from getting out because the amount of change
that they would have to impart would be it's a Monumental task to change the structure of how this stuff is is acquired it's I I you know the intellectually I can understand the reluctance to acknowledge it um because yes it's it makes you question um how these companies have been operating for years right and what else do we not know right you know what else do we not know I there there's going to be other problems um and the minute you acknowledge one people will inevitably ask well wait a minute what else do I need to know now what other problems I think could possibly exist uh oh man um so in in terms of uh this particular industry I mean there's there's still there's still lingering problems with the microprocessor those three TG conflict minerals in eastern Congo there's all of that none of that's been fixed uh it just you know people lose attention span um uh it's just that you can get those things in a lot of other places um gold especially um tantalum tungsten you can get those things in a lot of other places so it's possible to actually redirect and kind of clean up a supply chain um and I imagine much of that work is has been done but do we know uh everything we need to know about how lithium is being pulled out of the ground because that's the other crucial component to these batteries be it human rights or environmental sustainability do we know everything we need to know about the manufacturing part of this I mean you hear stories every once in a while you know these facilities in China and they've got kids in there and they're working 22 hours a day and they're not being paid that well and then it's quickly hush-hush and problem solved don't worry about it I I can't get into China you know I've tried a few times to get a Visa just I I I've not succeeded as of yet but I'd love to go poking around in some of those factories and get a sense of what's
really happening because I know from what I've seen on the ground in the Congo with Chinese mining companies human rights is an afterthought you know it's it doesn't it doesn't enter into the calculus um it's resource um and feed it up the chain um so stands to reason that similar things like with uyghurs you know and there's actually some bipartisan support on the uyghur issue um but you know there are possibly massive forced labor camps relating to electronic manufacturing as well as apparel solar panels um and you know that there's another whole truth there that we don't even have a grasp on um uh so yeah once you start opening the doors and say okay yes this is a big problem all right what are the other big problems out there uh because people will start looking and then and then suddenly the bottom end of much of the global economic order is revealed to be um tainted with an array of problematic labor conditions uh uh from child labor to Sweatshop labor to Penny wage labor to force labor labor abuse why is everything so cheap right right why is everything number one made over there and then number two so cheap uh that's the see the logic of slavery wasn't ever really about cruelty for cruelty sake I mean cruelty and and and violence and racism we're all a part of it but the logic of it was economic that throughout history for any business you might run one of the highest cost components if not the highest cost component is labor so producers have always tried to think how do we bring down labor costs how do we bring down labor costs so we can make more money um and slavery became the extreme of that okay let's nullify labor cost let's nullify it uh and so that that that logic that impulse that drove so much of the of the world economy for centuries it's not like it just went away because we wrote on paper that it's gone away uh and so especially in the era of globalized economy you know corporations will seek out uh shadowy
under regulated labor markets because they're cheaper and where do you often find things like child labor and slavery and cheap labor and in the poor parts of the world and that's why so much of our stuff is made over there one of the things that was highlighted during the pandemic was how dependent we are on things that come from other countries and there has been some discussion about constructing things in America and Building Things in America and having things made here under conditions that are controlled by our our labor rules and the ethics and morals that we operate under but it seems like we don't have the raw components so even if that's the case just the raw components like if they decided to manufacture all of the cell phones that Apple makes they said look we we have to come to grips the fact that it's inhumane the conditions these people work under and these plants where they build the phones we are now going to do this all in America all with unionized labor where they're paid very well and they have benefits still you have to deal with the raw components that's right that's that's exactly right there's no way around it there's no way around it and and and why does Apple not do that well apple is one of the richest companies that's ever existed which is insane when you think about the profit literally all comes it's all batteries everything they make has batteries everything everything every last piece of everything has Cobalt in that battery and they all have rechargeable batteries right um and they make money hand over fist more money than anyone any company maybe ever and the companies all and yet have at their Forefront social justice and ethics and morals read their pre read their press statements yeah yeah read their press statements they they they every quarterly statement every 10K you know uh we're proud to uphold human rights standards throughout our supply chain they all say always down to the mining level as they know in the back of their head there's people who know the truth so they put it out there you know and all of our suppliers participate in audits that there's no forced labor no child
labor uh and so on um so they all say that and and yeah so what would happen if apple and we don't not just to pick on them but of course they're the big the big elephant uh in this conversation um the biggest of them all so what would happen if they just shifted all their manufacturing here well they are shifting their manufacturing at least somewhat away from China because of all because of the supply chain risk yes um and all the problems they're having at the ver the facilities themselves where they're having riots yes protests and shutting down production and so they're realizing that that's an issue that's right but that's just that doesn't that's economic so and a lot of that shifted to India um uh which still has you know a lower wage labor market so but why isn't it all built here right why they're here right it's because of the profit right you'd actually have to pay people but they have so and is it also part of the problem that corporations have to exist on the structure of constantly increasing Revenue every year and shareholder value shareholder value everything comes down to shareholder value right that's what drives their stock price that's what drives their market cap its shareholder value and what's that that's your profits uh divided by the number of shares outstanding right roughly speaking uh and what's profits well it's revenues minus costs oh costs labor and so we're back to that same thing and so okay we can pay people in America you know 25 bucks an hour plus benefits and a 401k and time off and all of this business and or we can pay the people over there three bucks an hour and no 401k and right so that's what drives but as you rightfully noted what about the what about the raw materials because there's not enough of that here there are anywhere else all a lot of that is in sub-Saharan Africa in the Southern Hemisphere and so you'd still have to get cobalt and other things out of Africa and so what I'm saying is that's their chain you see the the blood for Cobalt economy only exists because
Apple Samsung Tesla all the Legacy car makers all the tech companies they have demand for Cobalt and that creates this value chain and the bottom of the value chain is the blood and misery we're talking about so it only exists because of their demand for it so aren't they responsible to fix the problem it seems like they absolutely should be it seems like it and yet none of them are accepting adequate responsibility and do you think that part of that is because of what we talked about before with profits and the rep the the obligation they have to their shareholders to do something like this would require just a fundamental change in the way they operate the only thing that I could think of that would somehow another shift this if some sort of a technological innovation that allowed them to create batteries with some new technology so okay it's a couple important important things here um I don't think it would cost all that much for them to solve this problem very quickly have you run numbers I mean let's let's look at what's what's the source of the harm okay it's peasants and kids digging in unsafe conditions for a dollar or two a day suffering injury toxic contamination and death so how do we address uh those harms what's the low-hanging fruit all right PPE gloves hard hats mask goggles whatever how much can that possibly cost um a decent wage so that parents don't have to bring their kids in to work just to survive all right instead of a dollar or two a day people in that part of the world can probably reasonably survive on ten dollars a day a day not an hour a day that's not going to add up to too much uh then you don't have artisanal tunnel digging let the excavators do it you know use proper heavy equipment well there's equipment down there if they need a little more how much how much could that really cost and you go down the list of these things that would help solve a lot of the harms and then
you add in a few things like invest in the local community that we Avail of like build some schools some public health clinics and so on it's not going to add up to that much I mean it would probably add up to what a company like apple makes in a day and you'd solve huge parts of the problem not all of it but a lot of the harm and injury that's being suffered could be avoided with some simple steps has anyone ever come to Tim Cook and presented him with this evidence and with this information and and asked him to comment on it uh I don't know um I'm that's a really good question uh I would love the opportunity to present it to him uh and ask him to comment on it and it probably wouldn't get to him you probably wouldn't get past the PR department uh and the CSR team that would say no where you know Apple's very aware and uh our our supply chain is clean and we we have independent Audits and so on and that would be the end of the discussion right I mean um but we have to get past that fiction and I hope that some of what I'm doing and what others uh no doubt will do um after my book comes out will will move us past that you know just that that that vacant vapid response that yeah we're aware that there are some problems in the Congo it's a poor country we uh our supply chain is audited and everything is you know is is A-Okay right as rain and we have to move we just have to move past that with truth and then and then the question is yeah uh will they engage age would Tim Cook Sundar pichai Satya Nadella Elon the rest of these and all of them I don't know the names of all the CEOs are the ones that come off the top of my head but will they engage on it they say okay all right um truth accepted uh problem acknowledged uh help us help us and I and and many others I'm sure would be only so happy um and look it should start with a trip they just need to go and see for themselves but they can't right like how much resistance would they experience I mean you're talking about going in there with where there's Commandos and kalashnikovs guarding these secrets yeah fair fair enough fair enough um no I mean I'm not even giving them an
excuse I'm just just sort of identifying the scope of what would be involved because it this would somehow impede on profits and a lot of these companies are run by Chinese corporations as well on uh yes yeah no no question no question that's a big part of the problem and we don't have to mince our words we don't have to mince our words about it um they are a big part of the problem their government their companies the way they do business um is a is a big part of the problem um but everybody knows it you know our tech companies and Evie they know who they're in business with right they're not they're not oblivious to um how business is done in China and by Chinese companies on the ground in the Congo uh part of the problem is there's not even one U.S Mining Company in the Congo um to maybe show by a better example of how to do things uh that's part of the problem um it's it's almost completely China plus glencore uh and one or two other companies maybe a Canadian one and so but it's all you know last time I was there there are 19 major industrial copper Cobalt complexes 15 are run by Chinese companies Chinese companies means Chinese government um glencore has a few more and then and then that's it and then you're dealing with the same issues because these companies these corporations are largely controlled by the government of China which is also responsible for the forced labor camps and absolutely the treatment of the uyghurs and well we have to decide you know I mean we meaning American companies have to decide you know what's what's the threshold at what point um do they have to make decisions around um their corporate moral record you know they know what's happening in China and with Chinese companies in other parts of the world um if I know it they all know it right um but there's just so much money at stake there's an anxiety about you know saying well we really need things to be done better they just say it uh don't worry you know everything's audited everything's okay they just keep saying
it and saying it and saying and all right so um could CEOs get down there all right yes I take the point that would be a little challenge I could probably still arrange something I could get them somewhere we can if I can do it and I'm you know of average intelligence and average means and resources um you know we can get some people down there to see some truth all right and then I'll go the rest of the way I'll go the rest of the way and while we're there while we're there even if they just hang out in a hotel in lubumbashi with their teams you know uh they will hear about a tunnel collapse within the first week I'll bring in some kids covered in filth and muck for them to see digging their Cobalt how about talk to some families we'll just go to a few villages or I'll bring them to the hotel just talk to some families let them tell you the truth you know yeah they can't go running around militia Minds fair enough but they can still get in country and see the truth and hear the truth I can arrange it for them their own teams could probably arrange it for them right it just needs to be something they want to do that they care enough about the bottom of their chain they created this chain no one put a gun to their head and said put Cobalt in the battery force them to do it that just so happens that helps the battery maintain thermal stability and have maximum energy density which means you don't have to plug your stuff in as often and your car can have a longer range electric car that's why Cobalt's so precious and you mentioned alternate Tech no question people are working on Cobalt free batteries because of the conversation we're having right now how much Headway is being made in that direction there's progress for sure for sure um because even if it weren't coming out of a war-torn country through child labor and misery and and and so on it's expensive you know and even from trying to reduce the cost of a battery cell um people are working on cobalt-free chemistries and there are options out there
um what are those options so there's things called solid-state batteries there are formulations that either use much less Cobalt there's some lithium iron phosphate is another formulation that doesn't have Cobalt um and you you sacrifice something right maybe a little bit of power maybe a little bit of range maybe a little bit of thermal stability nothing's ready uh to replace Cobalt entirely but there are there are batteries that work and work relatively well without Cobalt but that doesn't let's say let's say you stop using Cobalt entirely tomorrow um what about all the harm that's been done up until today do we just forget about it right and what happens to those people what if they do stop mining Cobalt what happens to those people there and there's an economy that even though it's a horrible economy they're the way they get money for food is dependent right now and you're talking about hundreds of thousands hundreds of thousands of people and the reason they're so dependent on those couple of dollars a day from Cobalt is because the mines took over everything I mean millions of trees have been clear-cut arable land has just been wiped out so where there was an agricultural economy a fishing economy some other ways to earn a living you know it's it's almost all gone because mining has taken over everything and Mining has likely destroyed the environment destroyed the environment so uh you know the the water the air it's all massively contaminated with heavy metals and toxic runoff uh so so they've been pushed to the fringes I mean the number of villages I would go to and then a year later that Village was gone because the the nearby mine got bigger and those people get displaced and so there's uh one one Congolese person told me I'll never forget his words uh uh he said soon there's going to be no place left in Congo for Congolese people uh I mean that's the mining provinces because their minds just keep growing and growing and people get displaced and pushed to the fringes and then as a consequence there's there's almost nothing left to do but dig because it's also a way to make sure you get a dollar
or two in your pocket that day it's the only way to make sure and that's the difference between survival and Oblivion and we're only talking about survival we're never talking about people making enough money to escape that life no it's not possible no no no no no no no they're always they're they're always at the precipice I mean there's nothing like saving money you know you don't you have a family uh working two parents three kids four kids whatever it might be you know in the aggregate maybe getting five six dollars for the day that's just space survival income you know just just enough to have some food and a Hut uh and and some clothes now and again and again no electricity very little very education no I mean um Congo has a nine percent electrification rate and about point three or point four percent in rural areas so like you know take out the big cities and it's like there's just no electricity uh um maybe twenty percent of people have access to sanitation uh child mortality is 11th or tenth worst in the world you know life expectancy is very short and in the mining provinces of course there's so much toxic runoff from the mining companies that fish stocks uh animal it's all contaminated agricultural land is contaminated so people suffer cancers they suffer kidney ailments they suffer hard metal lung disease from breathing in toxic Cobalt dust all day that includes the babies that are on their mother's backs acute dermatitis I mean the list goes on and on and on of all this injury and suffering um that's at the bottom of this chain whoo and when you're talking about these Alternatives like solid state batteries and all these different how far off are they from implementing those into the devices that we have so most of the new battery Tech that's being developed is going to be for EVS because that's where the big Cobalt demand is right they they have to figure out ways of minimizing or eliminating Cobalt for electric vehicles right now most of them require up to 10 kilograms of refined Cobalt our smartphones have like 10 grams so a
thousand times less can that be recycled can old EVS can they extract the Cobalt great question um right now the recycling Tech as I understand it doesn't produce a sufficient grade to put back into an EV battery you see for a car you need a couple of things number one you need a high level of energy density that's so you have longer driving range right I mean imagine you're a consumer you're thinking I've got my my gas car do I want to buy an electric car oh what's the first thing you think about do I have to plug it in you know every you know three times a day so you want to have a lot of range um you also think well now is this going to have some kind of weak Little Engine and I can't even get going on the highway and so on so it needs to have power right to to compete with an internal combustion V8 power engine uh and then it needs to be stable because you don't want that battery catching on fire because it's overheating or exploding right that's the other worry so those Cobalt solves all those problems and um there are there's new battery Tech um that will minimize or eliminate Cobalt that addresses most of those it may not be as give you the same range it may not give you as much power but it's perfectly doable for probably mass mass consumer but it's still and I think Tesla actually has some non-cobalt batteries on the market now uh in some of their cars they're working hard to transition here it is Tesla is already using Cobalt free lfp batteries in half of its new cars produced yeah so that's lithium ferrous phosphate one of the times of uh yeah iron phosphate ferrous phosphate one of the kinds I mentioned that doesn't use Cobalt so you sacrifice a little bit of range a little bit of power um but they still have a lot of other cars with Cobalt most of the EVS have Cobalt in the batteries um and then you obviously have this ramped up production across all the major manufacturers that's right because look it's you know um there's probably 22 24 million EVS on the road in the
world right now and if you look at the the goals under Paris the Paris Accord cop 26 you know what what they're forecasting to try to meet climate sustainability goals you need something like two to three hundred million EVS on the road by the end of this decade seven eight years out so you need a 10 10 to 15 fold increase uh so that's where the demand is coming from and there's going to be Cobalt in those batteries through the end of the decade and probably for decades to come even if some manufacturers uh use alternate formulations um it's not like Cobalt's going to disappear and it's still going to be in the phones and all because for phones and tablets and laptops you don't have the same need for that power uh uh an energy density that you need with a car so Cobalt is going to stay in our you know gadgets and gizmos for a long time to come there's no alternative method of batteries that they've come up with or I'm not yeah I it's a good question I'm not sure people are even really working on non-cobalt batteries for smartphones and tablets maybe maybe they are it's more the EV sector because that's where what people realize is there's just not enough Cobalt left to meet demand you know we've had these conversations many times but I've always tried to figure out like we had a conversation recently we were trying to figure out what's the most ethical phone to buy like is there a phone that's ethical to buy but it doesn't seem like there's any answer it seems like at the very least I mean I don't think any phone is manufactured in America is that correct no no they're all they're all made mostly China you know there's probably no kids of course um I don't know if they're made in uh most of it's manufactured in Asia and so even with just construction there's no companies that are manufacturing or putting together a phone that is even constructed without the use of extremely cheap labor no quite right that that's right you know as you work up the chain it's not like the problems are solved right you know even in even when you get to the battery component stage and then the phone assembly stage there's labor issues further up the chain they might not be as horrific as what's happening
in the Congo but they're still overworked Penny wage cheap labor forced labor um low-wage labor all those problems um exist further up the chain that's why I mean it's all assembled over there for a reason yeah uh and it comes down to increasing shareholder value and you know stock option value uh and and yeah to be fair pension fund value 401K value I mean you know um people want their retirements account retirement accounts to to continue growing as well and so you know there's this phrase the double bottom line right that we can't just have companies running on a single bottom line which is earnings per share net profit uh that there's another bottom line relating to sustainability and and human rights and so on that needs to be incorporated and right now it's still it's Incorporated in terms of verbiage uh but not so much action but even the the really confusing thing to me is that even if we decided like we will are willing to pay more money to have a phone that's constructed and manufactured with ethics and morals and that we align with here in America even if we did it in America we still have the material issue you still have that issue and unless there's some sort of a massive technological Revolution where they figure out some new source of energy well they did have that what was it the fission fusion where they actually created energy uh a week or two ago and I'm you know that I'm sure is many many years away from being put in phones and all but they'll be you know there will continue to be um technological advancements there's nothing immediate around the Horizon um that would solve these problems today or account for the harms of the past it's such a damning indictment on the worst case scenario of of of human beings of what we're capable of what kind of Horrors we're capable yeah that's I think you know that's what really hurts and and hits hard um when I do the research I do to see the the cruelty between
um that we're capable of uh and the the callous disregard you know the they don't count as much um mentality you have a voice they definitely don't have a voice and voice is everything everything voice I mean that's why what you're doing is so important because you are through your book and through doing something like this podcast you're giving it a voice that it didn't have before and even to me someone who was aware of it who's seen documentaries on the horrific conditions like the the facilities that manufacture the phones and even the Cobalt mines yeah you're explaining it in a way that's undeniable well it's uh yeah it's voice voices everything I I hope my book amplifies the voices of the Congolese people it's written around their voices their truth um I I'm trying to be an invisible pass-through or conduit as much as I can um it's hard to keep my emotions out of it entirely it's impossible yeah it's impossible you you're at the verge of crying through this whole podcast it's uh but this and this podcast Joe you know you've you've Amplified their voices um immeasurably in this in this moment right now I mean probably more than my book ever will you know Millions more people listen to you than uh will will likely read my book uh but it all adds up you know you've made such a powerful choice in bringing me here today uh I'm grateful for it on behalf of the people in the Congo who are crying out every day I think of them every day I mean I I have the towns in my little you know on my phone I checked the weather there I try to just stay connected when I'm even when I'm far away because I think of them constantly I mean there are faces that I see they're mothers I met oh man just pounding their chest in torture because a child was buried alive I mean can you imagine as a parent thinking through that you know what was that what was my son's final thoughts buried beneath the cold merciless dirt digging for Cobalt because we needed that dollar like what were his final thoughts the for a parent to relive that day after day that torture you know and I've I've seen it
and I felt it it's so painful and that we're capable of this as a as a species as a civilization you know that we're capable of tolerating this or looking the other way and when I say we I mean just our broader economic order you know there are any people with compassion uh who care deeply but our civilization writ large is tolerating so much violence against some of the most vulnerable and impoverished people in the world and for what for our convenience for money uh well not only that there's so much of what we already have that's good enough but yet we have this constant desire for technological innovation that requires more and more and more yeah haven't the phones that we have five years ago are more than sufficient to operate Our Lives that's right and in heaven uh haven't we been made fools of to to be made to think we have to keep getting the newest everything it's so bizarre such a bizarre desire that we have but it seems to be a part of human beings this constant thirst for technological innovation yeah just an improvement I've got the newest one did you get the newest one right you know that you know someone sold us that mentality and and we labor under it and keep consuming and consuming uh as a result and that consumption feeds down the chain because it has to be met and and I think it's been done to us you know I this this feeling that we have to just keep absorbing and buying and consuming things especially in the west you know because that feeds profits yeah when you were over there and you had all these people that aided you in this investigation what can be done to protect those people because I gotta imagine when this information comes out they're going to try to figure out how you got access yes so um I thought I had I have thought and continue to think very carefully about that um uh you know one one thing is I I will never you know reveal the names or identities the people who help me ever um uh and I was very careful about when I went around um to see who else is looking right
um um because if the wrong person sees me with this person that could be a problem down the road was your identity ever revealed was there ever a situation where people knew what you were doing when you were in trouble or in danger yeah many times I mean um yeah it's there's a very thin margin between pushing to find the truth and then putting people at risk um and when in doubt I aired on the side of not putting people at risk well it seems like what was exposed just by watching the video that you took is just it's so undeniable it's it's utterly that's it's utterly undeniable the truth is right there all they have to do is want to see it it seems so bizarre that it takes a person like you to write a book and to go over there and risk your life and then to come on a podcast and discuss it and to write a book and distribute that book that this isn't something that's on every major News Channel every newspaper on the front page every day like look what we're doing like look at the harm we're causing look at what we're worried there's so many there's so many things that we're worried about in this country that could be considered trivial in comparison who buys the ads on a lot of those major news channels yeah okay and I say that not just glibly because I after I came back from one of my trips you know I've written a few op-eds along the way just talking about what I've seen and um uh after my last trip um I wasn't able to go in 2020 because the pandemic I got back in 2021 and I was able to see the impact of the pandemic on the people down there by the way which is another important thing we should mention um but I was writing up an op-ed um uh uh and the the point of it was that um you know we relied more than ever on our rechargeable devices during lockdowns and so on in order to continue our jobs and education right I mean a lot of people did online school especially in the first part of the pandemic during the lockdowns work
from home all that right so demand for rechargeable gadgets increased which meant demand for Cobalt increased and I was curious well what happened down there at the other end of the chain uh and when I finally got back down there what I saw was um a lot of the big mining companies also uh shuttered for weeks and months especially in the beginning especially in the beginning when people didn't know what was going on um but it's not like demand for Cobalt stopped it actually went up because everyone was buying more stuff to do work from home and school from home so there was massive pressure pushing the peasant population into the trenches and pits to keep the Cobalt flowing and they got sick and they got unwell and their income certainly didn't improve uh kids were pulled out of school the ones that were in school to keep the Cobalt flowing and I wrote a little op-ed about it um and I had the hardest time placing it in mainstream media how so what was told to me by a couple of journalists colleagues off the Record was you're coming at companies that buy too much advertising Jesus and that was that that's another part of this whole thing right uh that when you mention well why isn't it plastered all over mainstream media um now to be fair there's been some journalism on it some newspaper articles some stories uh and some mainstream media has been down there to do the odd story but they only go to a point you know they don't go to the they don't Pierce to the truth and uh that's something I had to contend with that I didn't that I didn't think I would and I had to sort of in the end kind of tweak and dial back my op-ed and I got it placed up on um CNN uh website last December um after that after that last trip I took um but it should be everywhere we should be talking about it um the same way years ago everyone was talking about sweatshops and Nike and you know that got a lot of attention and then blood diamonds and we all talked about that and we we talk about it when it punches through you know and gets to
enough people and gets coverage and and so that day will come for Cobalt it's coming soon I'm going to keep pushing until it comes and then I'm going to stand back and and let people deal with this and solve these problems people meaning these companies and if they want help I'm here it's also this undeniable feeling that history will not be kind to this era when we look back at this and about how people have conveniently ignored this or willfully tried to not just ignore the truth but cover it yeah you know that's that's something it's just that it's the tragedy on top of the tragedy that uh it didn't have to be it didn't have to be this way it it and it doesn't have to be this way um it just takes accepting responsibility and I know we've talked about why that may be problematic and lead to some blowback and whatnot but you know what one day it's going to happen is it will have to happen people are going to demand that it happens once they learn the truth you know the very first abolitionists back in the late 1700s they lived in a time where slavery was okay everybody had slaves um it's the way things were and there were a handful of people who came together they were in London 1787 and they said no this is not okay um and they've they operated on a belief that if the average person average person is good in their heart and if they know the truth they'll do something about it and there were some in the group that were more cynical and I know what are you talking about people are self-interested they don't want things disrupted and power definitely doesn't want things disrupted um and there was this ideological tussle but in the end they were right they brought the truth out people cared enough people cared and things had to change and they did change at least on paper now the legacies of how slavery has persisted and so on that's another conversation but the first movement succeeded because of this idea bring the truth that first Congo horror
same thing the first human rights movement of the 20th century was shine light Into the Heart of Darkness in the Congo and there were people who went down there and they gathered testimonies and they gathered data and they brought it to the world and power said no no no it's a fiction don't believe what they're saying this is nonsense everything's fine down there we're saving these people they're working well and they're happy and they kept coming at it with truth and truth and then finally things changed Leopold's regime was brought down in that case and the same thing will happen today it's just a question of when uh and when enough people hear about it and especially because it touches their lives right every single day you can't send a a tweet you can't check your email you can't check Instagram you can't do social media you can't function I mean 99.9 percent of the people who are probably going to listen to us have this conversation will do so on a gadget that has Cobalt in the battery you know so it touches all of our lives and when enough people know that truth they're going to say no not tolerable uh and then these companies are going to have to account for all of it so they might as well get started I hope I wish they would but it will be forced upon them uh I think by the good people of this of this world eventually and the other option which which is even more horrific is that nothing changes I suppose um there's always the possibility you know that they'll continue to operate as they do now and ignore this and hopefully this won't get Amplified to the point where there's a public outrage I think that's the I think that's their hope you know that just kick the can keep kicking it down field that is crazy um and you know put out our PR statements and and and say that we're doing good things and working on it and it's not in my supply chain this is the thing you see they all say okay there's problems there but it's not in my supply chain it's in the the other guy's supply chain and they're all saying that and you think well if it's a nobody supply chain where's all that Cobalt going
uh but I think they the the practice they've been operating under all this time is keep it shrouded keep business going uh keep the story suppressed keep attention elsewhere and just keep it going until we figure out something else some other attack we don't need Cobalt we find some other alternative and then we won't have to deal with it in which case it still doesn't make up for the fact that those people that were involved in this are are still captured by it that's right it doesn't and have suffered uh and will be left in abject poverty with a destroyed environment a contaminated environment uh and the sudden loss of what meager income uh they were able to generate now living in a place where there's just nothing left when you wrote this book and when you decided to do podcasts and discuss this what do you believe to be the best case scenario for how it's received best case scenario I I believe change comes from the ground up I think power has to be brought along the way sometimes it's top down uh but usually important advancements in human rights come from the ground up so my hope is enough people read this book enough people feel it in their hearts feel connected to those kids in the Congo the brothers and sisters in the Congo uh feel that they are all part of the same chain and and demand that the corporations atop uh the Cobalt value chain solve the problem now there'll be another whole set of roadblocks at that point because they'll say oh no we are solving it don't worry don't worry and and so they'll they'll have to be a push there's always has to be a push you know when the first abolitionist tried to abolish slavery the slave owner said okay yeah we've we've implemented some changes and conditions now in the plantations in the West Indies are not so bad so don't worry about it just get back to your daily lives and and so you have to keep pushing you have to keep pushing truth when the truth Seekers brought light about what was happening in Leopold's Congo he said no no no my my soldiers aren't chopping off hands
when they don't meet their quota uh those are wild boars he actually they actually said this those are wild boar accidents uh and so they have to just keep coming at it keep coming at it and the same will happen now this is the first Salvo so this will be the first book on this topic this is probably the first podcast on this topic um is this the first Salvo uh and there will have to be much more behind it so my hope my dream is that this will stir the outrage of enough people that they will not stop until the degradation of poor Congolese people at the bottom of this supply chain is resolved I don't know how much more we can say on this well we've talked it out yeah that's what I'm saying yeah I mean this is uh it is what it is it's right in front of our face and now this information is going to get to the people at Samsung and Apple and a Tesla and all these companies that are involved in this it appears that Tesla at least is aware of it with their their Cobalt free batteries but yeah this is I mean it's undeniably horrific and it's it's it's impossible to imagine that it was allowed to get to this position that's a thing Joe I mean it didn't have to be this way it they could have just set it up right at the beginning and simply done the things they said they were doing if these were American corporations involved in the extraction of cobalt do you think that things could have been different do you think that if these were absolutely no no look you can't an American company anywhere in the world cannot behave the way some of these Chinese companies are behaving and you know there was one American company down there uh Freeport McMoRan had the largest copper Cobalt concession in the Congo they sold it to a Chinese company in 2006 for 2.65 billion dollars and with that left the only American presence in the mining provinces of the Congo and it's been a down but downward spiral since then um because you see had at least one American company state if not more the chain would have felt tighter because America would be on the ground there right now they just think no no
problem is way over there these Chinese companies talk to them it's their responsibility to to to do things right and and if an American company stayed there or even a yeah it would have been different I I I do fundamentally believe that and we need to have a presence there it was where the where the other way of doing business I'm not saying our companies are perfect the whole conversation we're having right now is because they have allowed a massive human invasion of human rights to persist at the bottom of their chains but it would have made a difference I do believe that uh and and there needs to be more uh ground presence um by American companies in the Congo but yeah we've look we've there should there's good there will need to be more conversations about this I mean you me and Tim Cook should have a a nice sit down or you me and Elon should have a nice sit down and just let's solve this problem let's accept the truth let's solve this problem I am a humble servant to any CEO that wants to solve this problem uh I just want to see see those faces that are etched in my mind and burned in my heart the scenes I've I've I've I've witnessed the testimonies of horror that I've I've heard uh and that will be Amplified by the book by this podcast and hopefully by other media as the story gets out there uh I just want that pain to be closed is there any potential for a western company an American company or any company that operates under a much higher example of ethics and morals entering into the space or is all that area completely controlled by Chinese its control uh China has 70 to 80 percent of the production of copper Cobalt Ore coming out of the Congo glencore is the only other Behemoth down there and they are Swiss Swiss UK company and do they operate differently they're you know they've gotta they've got their own checkered uh past they're under investigation by the U.S and UK and swiss governments for corruption bribery fraud um in the Congo as well as other places I think they've paid some fines for it um a lot of artisanal Cobalt flows into their supply chain as well based on what I've seen on the ground
um but but there's yeah China China has 70 to 80 percent of the production of raw copper Cobalt or they produced last year 75 percent of the world's supply of refined Cobalt and the uh two of the top five biggest battery manufacturers in the world are Chinese companies uh the biggest one catl has a one-third market share by itself of all the batteries and all the cars and gadgets and gizmos um so they they control it um and that that's part of the problem so was there ever an opportunity for American corporations to control I mean when they realized that Cobalt was such an integral part of this technological age that we live in right now was there an opportunity for them to go in and Implement their own standards and extract Cobalt in a more ethical way yeah they realized it too late um China saw it you know they signed a big deal with Congolese government 2009 which opened the door to Chinese mining companies this is early ages yeah they saw it they saw it way back um I mean the world they cornered the Cobalt Market before the world knew what was going on and um Freeport was there they left in 2006. unfortunately um I actually talked to an executive over there who who was one of the people running that concession and the way he explained it they were on the wrong end of some oil and gas Investments and they had to cut debt um uh and so this sale was was one of the ways they did it but and ever since then there's just there's been no U.S presence it's almost all Chinese companies they cornered the market early on and even if there was would they be able to operate in a competitive environment given the fact that they do have have to abide by their shareholders and this philosophy of continuing to increase Revenue every quarter yeah you know we're speculating here right um I mean because the one of the things is once you get down into that part of the world uh everything just works a little differently um but you know we have things like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act I mean we've got certain laws that mean you can't go around bribing people and and engaging in Shady behavior and I'm not saying it doesn't happen but um you know
someone brings to light that your mining company has in this case a U.S company child labor you know someone's going to order up a congressional hearing on it and there's going to be heat and then journalists are going to jump on it and it's just harder to get away with it for as long and as severely as companies from other countries have gotten away with it um and the only reason the top of the chain companies which are based here have gotten away with it is because they're another degree or two removed from the bottom but i s this is the the fundamental truth the entire value chain only exists because of their demand for this substance it wouldn't exist no one forced anybody to put Cobalt in a battery um so they created the demand and they have to start with the solutions this is probably one of the heaviest podcasts I've ever done but yeah I'm so I'm listening no don't worry I apologize thank you thank you very much and thank you for your bravery and and what you've done in in exposing this and and in going there it's uh it's very hard to accept but I think that this information this is the first step and as you said the first Salvo well it it means the world to me Joe the world to me not for me but for the people I know and I see in my nightmares it means the world that you invited me to come and talk about this um uh because you amplify this story and their truth and their voices to the point where maybe some good can actually start to happen and if that's the outcome then then you know we have spent a preciously valuable couple hours together well I hope that is the case and so once again your book is available January 31st it's called Cobalt red how the blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives thank you very much thank you for everything I really really appreciate what you've done thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music]