Beyond the Oil Age: The real cost of cobalt mining in DRC | Dying Earth E4 | Featured Documentary
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- čas přidán 30. 04. 2024
- The dark side of 'green energy': The real cost of cobalt mining in the DRC and how it impacts the nation’s environment.
From smartphones to aircraft engines to the batteries of electric cars, cobalt is a critical component of modern life since the metal protects batteries from overheating and catching fire, extending their lifespans. As demand for cobalt has skyrocketed over the last few decades, it is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, home to most of Earth’s cobalt reserves, which has borne the brunt. The central African country has seen an expansion of industrial-scale mines that extract this metal. But this has led to forced evictions and human rights abuses as well as devastating climate implications. Mines - both legal and illegal - have been appearing all over the nation, and threatening the pristine tropical rainforest.
The film Beyond the Oil Age delves into a modern world trying to move to greener cleaner energy at the expense of countries like the DRC. The miracle metal cobalt, a superalloy, is now turning into a deadly chemical as toxic dumping has devastated landscapes, polluted water and contaminated crops. The quest for DRC’s cobalt has demonstrated how the clean energy revolution, meant to save the planet from perilously warming temperatures, is caught in a familiar cycle of environmental degradation, exploitation and greed.
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If you think this is bad now, wait until electric vehicles become "mainstream." It has precedent: the Congolese suffered greatly when automobiles emerged as the "next big thing" in the technological revolution. They worked on slave-like rubber plantations for Belgium's King Leopold, who considered the entire Congo "private property." Among other uses, the rubber would feed the tire industry, a significant supplier to the automotive sector.
Well said!
Unfortunately true
people from DRC I couldn't understand the extent of suffering 😢 I couldn't believe how can human do that... I read about Leopard he was a really criminal
Worked as slaves? LOL if that was all that happened it would be horrifying but they did much much much worse. Something like 20m congolese died. Numerous others lived with lost hands and other appendages. Ironically, we are constantly drip feed the horrors of ww2 and hitlers prosecution of the jews but at no point during highschool was king Leopold ever discussed.
The majority of BEV today don’t use Cobalt! Lithium Iron Phosphate! The poor can keep the Cobalt we won’t need it.
it is all just slavery in another skin.
In an age where you can travel from one side of the planet to the other in a single day, there is no excuse for inequality except intent.
Well said, but the Black Africans leaders have no problems with others taking their resources as long as they get a cut!
you make it sounds like giving abeeds jobs is a bad thing
This could have been a blessing when it’s properly managed but greed has turned these resources to a curse in Congo.
it is a blessing, abeeds are working and that's a good thing. If they weren't working they would be engaged in wars or making babies they can't afford. So you can see they are behaving themselves and not breeding out of control, what's wrong with that?
Corporate Greed
I have been Congo to be specific eastern Congo , from Kivu to Shaba I never ever seen absolutely beautiful land like Congo , ever green , fertile red soil , rain forest , massive rivers breth taking blessed and cursed by minerals .but but fakin politicians and neighbour countries torn apart this country.
Puppet politicians, warlords , etc
This country has been cash cow from king Leopard up to now .
I’m not Congolese but I am African and it’s sad sad
God bless Congo
The people there are just corrupt....they don't care for anyone but themselves....but soon they will discover why divide and rule worked so well for the British...a good example right now is the hate on China...they call it authoritarian..but the hate is simply because you can't divide and rule china and they know that'
Read the book "Cobalt Red" by Siddharth Kara.
Thanks so much for posting
Thank you for watching
Its had to believe that a country with so much potential has been sunk into misery by museveni and kagame
The exact link between global industry and local mining terror would be interesting too. THX
This is both an external and internal issues but utimately, congolose people will have to find a way to fight this crisis by themselves in order to come out in full control of these resources. With great power, comes great responsability. It is normal for a place like congo to be ravaged by these kind of issues when the whole world wants a piece of you and wants to weaken you in order to get a better deal. But "come what may be, all bad fortune is to be conquered by endurance" -Virgil.
I want to know more about the "medicine" they're putting in the lake....
yeah anyone with a brain can see a dark theme behind that 'Medecine in the water". We can consider that since cobalt is the critical mineral that is needed from the indutrialized multinationals, what stops them from polluting and infecting other means of survival and work like fishing in certain villages & communities in order to indirectly force them to find work or means of survival in collecting cobalt...If that would be true, that is such a level of evil.
Until recently the #1 use for cobalt was to clean diesel and other petrochemicals. It's still a huge industry. In addition six billion cell phones plus pads laptops and millions of devices use lithium cobalt battery and have done so for decades. Today there's an opportunity to recycle all battery materials. Many EVs nnow use batteries without cobalt or nickel.
Why doesn't extraction countries create monopolies like OPEC to charge a price reflective of the costs of extracting the mineral ores. If we cannot attach an economic cost/value to manual labour reflective of the long term costs then it's hard to motivate higher prices for consumers.
Ask Iran what the west does when a state chooses to prioritize its own people.. 1954 I believe is the exact date.
@@jenifernaidoo7231 hm. I hear that point but just because one fails doesn't mean what they were trying was wrong. Just saying. Failing doesn't mean your wrong. Especially in business. But yeah the consequences of failing are hefty, especially for large systems such as nation states.
So put more money into the pockets of the Congo billionaires? I believe the issue is corruption in the countries where it is being mined, and the workers not getting paid, the people find the cobalt and then they are exploited by the military or "government" of their country, who pocket all the cash and do not pay it forward to the workers/communities where it's being mined.
@@TheHungryHobo got a point. I hear that
@@nokotshehla2616 Sorry but you are missing the point. A democratically elected government was toppled by the American state in order to continue benefitting from other people's wealth. The same thing was done in the very same Congo when Patrice Lumumba was assassinated. It is amazing that all over Africa there is corruption and the beneficiaries are warlords, government officials and somehow the west. Amazing
There future is so bright, can’t wait to see it
If they sent out UN in their region they will be benefiting in their work
😂
It's a fact look now Afghanistan is progressing
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Isn't it mind boggling that mining trumps food production? Don't they have some of the worlds most fertile land available to them? Why are the people starving? Time to set some new priorities!
There is a better way. Get the metal from the ocean floor. Polymetalic nodules. The Metals Company is going to start collecting them in a year.
Get these poor people out of the mines, please.
Agree with getting them out, don't agree with mining the ocean! Too much risk involved for the Earth and within it.
Romans 10:9-10 KJV
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. [10] For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
😂 missionaries that pillaged Africa
Congo 😢
SHAME all around!😑
Great Documentary, but the wheel has already been invented even when it comes to supply and demand, i leverage what you want and what i have for the betterment of my country! I feel for the poor people, their health and the destruction of the land and water, but over the decades i have accepted the fact that Black Africans countries are just fine other's taking their natural resources!
Normalize Ⓐctive unions and worker co-ops. Democratize🗳️the workplace. Workers make the earth run, workers should run the earth☭.🌎🏴🇨🇩🇨🇬
I preferred Al jazeera in documentary than their news item which they are bias.
So which news channel do you prefer, can you recommend an unbiased one.?
A bit rich that Al Jazeera - sponsored by Qatar - is doing a series on climate change
(lets see how long till this comment gets deleted)
A bit rich that Al Jazeera - sponsored by Qatar - is doing a series on climate change
(lets see how long till this comment gets deleted)
Such BS! The majority of BEV today don’t use Cobalt! Lithium Iron Phosphate! The poor can keep the Cobalt we won’t need it.
Tu parles de quel pauvre ?
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