The Southern Star this week carries news of (the lack of) EV chargers across Cork, while the EU has announced over €600 million for ‘alternative fuels’ like electric recharging stations, hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol bunkering for road and maritime transport across Europe. The local news is focused on the price of an electric car and the few euros we’ll save insuring it, while the international covers the ‘zero-emission mobility’ aims of the EU.

Recent reports have covered the ever-cheaper electric Chinese cars now available on the market; all good news for us here in Ireland as we learn that China is the dominant player in cobalt mining and owns 80% of cobalt production in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where more than half of the world’s mineral production is based.

At the same time, about 30 miners were killed earlier this week at a cobalt mine in DRC, a country that has been raped for its resources, including its people, for hundreds of years.

Footage of the mine collapse is terrifying, yet has not been widely shared by Western media. Bearing in mind that the cobalt that these people are mining for a pittance is used to power the phones we so eagerly clutch every day, this is a darkly laughable irony.

Disasters happen every day, maybe every hour. But in this case, these people are direct victims of us and of the phones and electric cars that we want so badly. At Kasulo, also in the DRC, a ‘tailings’ dam (where minerals are sorted) collapsed a few weeks ago, flooding the major urban area of Kolwezi and possibly contaminating underground water sources with the toxic chemicals. A major containment spill in adjoining Zambia in February has leaked 50 million litres of arsenic and cyanide into the Kafue River, a river that about 10 million people depend on, half the country’s population. This is the result of such intensive mining.

Mining in Congo employs an estimated 1.5 to two million people directly, including children, who work in unregulated mines to dig up the cobalt and copper, essential for lithium batteries and the latest iPhone. Despite the country being the bread basket of these irreplaceable and invaluable minerals, the country is ranked as one of the poorest in the world, a sick statistic in a sick world. Difficult questions need to be asked of ourselves in how we live our lives; where we buy our clothes, how and when do we replace our phone and car, how we power our homes. It is impossible to live ethically and no one is a martyr. However, it is unconscionable to remain purposefully and wilfully ignorant of the real news that lurks behind the headlines.

The Halo effect

Sky launched, and then crawled back three days later, on their TikTok channel Halo. Basically, Sky Sports for girls. This writer unfortunately missed the chance to have a look at the pink glittery font, but it must have been bad to only live for 72 hours. How are these people so stupid? How is an organisation with money to burn so wildly bad at their job?

What is truly baffling, is why a business would miss the chance to capitalise on 50% of the world’s population. It’s true that women, by and large, aren’t as interested in sport as men. However, there’s still a fair few million of the fairer sex that are interested and they have money to spend on it too. Why would a company not want it? Their obliviousness is costing them, which is always surprising but sure look.

At this point it’s a waste of words to ask companies to ‘be better’. Don’t be better, be yourselves. It’s much more entertaining.