Joe Rogan knows how to surprise his audience with a good podcast every once in a while. Recently, three days before Christmas, Joe Rogan invited Siddharth Kara, a Harvard professor, and chatted on various topics in a 2-hour long interview.
A ‘fun’ fact that the professor shared with Joe Rogan left the podcaster stunned. While Joe Rogan presents himself as a close friend of Elon Musk, didn’t know a basic thing about electric vehicles. All electronic devices, including vehicles, use cobalt-based components. A material that factories usually buy from Chinese mines in Congo. Mines where the employers keep their employees in slavery-like conditions.
Joe Rogan Surprised By The Fact That All Electric Devices Use Materials From Cobalt Slave Mines
Siddharth Kara is an author of a book about the Cobalt mines in Congo. He did research on what is happening there. The book Cobalt Red: How The Blood of The Congo Powers Our Lives explains how there is a misconception that cobalt could be ‘clean mined’. He clears all the misconceptions around it. The book explains how absolutely all of the cobalt mines are abusing people and treating them as slaves.
During the episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the professor doubles down on the idea that there is no such thing as ethically mining cobalt. He says that every single electric device in the world uses a lithium battery. A battery that made its way to the electric device through slavery.
The professor came ready to the podcast and showed Joe Rogan several videos proving that the mine workers are working in inhuman conditions. They usually do not have the needed equipment for mining and work with their hands only. As expected they do not have the needed protective equipment and risk their lives for basically no return.
“Cobalt is in every single lithium, rechargeable battery manufactured in the world today.” – Siddharth Kara told Joe Rogan. “Every smartphone, every tablet, every laptop, and crucially, every electric vehicle relies on it.”
“We can’t function on a day-to-day basis without cobalt, and three-fourths of the supply is coming out of the Congo. And they mine it in appalling, heart-wrenching, dangerous conditions. By and large, the world doesn’t know what’s happening…I don’t think people are aware of how horrible it is.”
Joe Rogan was misled to believe that ethically mined cobalt does exist. However, the professor told him the truth – leaving Joe Rogan in shock.
Speaking about the ‘clean cobalt’ misconception, Siddharth Kara told that it is ‘all a marketing plan’, that makes the public believe in lies. China controls almost all cobalt mines. While they sell stories about ‘clean cobalt’, each mine he ever visited is full of child labor and slavery.
Joe Rogan knew that Siddhart Kara is a person that fights for the rights of these suppressed people. The professor gained popularity last year when in an op-ed for CNN he explained how he spoke with a child in one of the mines he visited. The child explained the working conditions and told him how he is digging for heterogenite. The worker explained how they are selling the mined cobalt to contractors usually run by Chinese agents. These agents sell their goods to foreign mining companies who then ‘re-sell’ clean cobalt. Clean cobalt that goes to all big companies such as Tesla, Apple, and Intel.
“This is so crazy to see.” – Joe Rogan told watching one of the videos.
