Cobalt mining in the Congo exposes both the hidden human cost of technologies we rely on and the limits of a news culture that directs our attention towards some crises while leaving others almost invisible.

I have some sympathy for those who say they don’t engage with the news. Why spend your life engaging with negative stories handpicked to create outrage?

Our global media world is a manufactured nightmare. If we think of our ancestors, they were largely unaware of what was happening beyond their own village, beyond their own region. Bad things certainly happened. Witches were burnt, towns were razed, people starved when it didn’t rain. But when spring was in full bloom and the birds were singing, you had no idea of what catastrophes were happening in other parts of the world.

This is not possible any more.

Last night I stumbled on an interview that landed in my feed. I did not choose it. But I chose to not ignore it. It was some guy being interviewed on Joe Rogan. I had no idea who he was. Within ten minutes I was involved. The man was a great storyteller.

“Our daily lives are powered by a human and environmental catastrophe in the Congo”, he said. “Cobalt mining is the slave farm perfected. The cost of labour has been nullified through the degradation of Africans at the bottom of an economic chain.”

What really made me sit up were the salient details. He claimed that every day at least 300,000 Congolese, including women and children, dug for cobalt, often with their bare hands. They worked underground or in huge pits exposed to searing daily temperatures. But the natural environment was not the main hazard. He related that the cobalt-bearing dust itself is incredibly toxic, particularly to breathe, with prolonged exposure carrying an increased risk of cancer. The threat........

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