Marshall here. Welcome back to the Realignment.

Hey everyone, we were listening to the Friday edition of the Realignment.

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Today's guest is Cidarth Cara, researcher, activist on modern slavery, and author of the forthcoming

Cobalt Red, how the blood of the Congo powers our lives. This follows the realignment's coverage

of energy and environmental issues. The TLDR on Cobalt is that it is the essential component

in every Lithiana, iron, rechargeable battery, everything from smartphones and laptops to electric

vehicles. With the global pivot to EVs, Cobalt is only going to 10X in importance over the next decade.

Cobalt mining comes at an extreme cost, especially in the Congo where 70% of the world's supply is

located. Exploring the story involves everything from supply chains to child and peasant labor,

and as we discussed in the episode, justice, sweatshop, labor conditions,

controversies where the cost of 90s globalization, conditions in the Congo, and the cost of progress

were defined in the 2020s. Huge thank you to Lincoln Network for supporting the podcast.

Hope you all enjoy this conversation.

Cidarth Cara, welcome to the realignment. Oh, I'm so pleased to be here. Thank you.

Let me ask you a naive sounding question. Why does slavery still exist?

Yeah, it's not naive at all. In fact, it's one of the most pertinent questions we should be asking

because we study in history books that slavery was abolished in the 1800s,

...