Coltan, Cell Phones and Crisis in the Congo
Published on Saturday, April 19, 2008 by The Bear Deluxe Magazine
Apocalypse Found
Coltan, Cell Phones and Crisis in the Congo
by Casey Bush and Joshua Seeds
The horror! The horror!” These are the famous last words uttered by Mr. Kurtz, a character in Joseph Conrad’s 1902 novella Heart of Darkness. Kurtz is an ivory dealer who set himself up as a jungle demigod hustling elephant tusks down the Congo River to a lucrative European market. That utterance, repeated by Marlon Brando as Col. Kurtz in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 movie, Apocalypse Now, says it all about the night- mare of the white man’s burden: a dark dream that continues today.With nearly every use of a new cell phone or compu- ter, American consumers depend on the natural element tantalum, which is extracted from coltan, a mineral often mined illegally in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC.
A tenfold spike in the price of coltan in 2000 brought attention to its lawless extraction in the Congo with head- lines like, “Coltan, Gorillas and Cell Phones,” and “Coltan Boom, Gorilla Bust.” As in the past with elephants, moun- tain gorillas and millions of innocent civilians today are being trampled in the quest for mineral wealth deep in the heart of Africa.
Earth Island Journal argues that the 2000 spike in coltan prices was caused by the launch of the Sony PlayStation 2 and a new generation of mobile phones. The irony of that observation was not lost on British Labour MP Oona King when she expounded, “Kids in Congo are being sent down into mines to die so that kids in Europe and America can kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms.”
The predominant use of tantalum is for capacitors, a component of electronics such as cell phones, computers, DVD players and video-game systems. Capacitors hold an electronic charge and are used for energy storage and the filtering of electronic fields. Superalloys made of tantalum and other metals are extremely hard and find their place in turbines for jets as well as parts for missiles and nuclear reactors. The versatile mineral is also used for surgical tools and medical implants because tantalum coatings do not react with body tissues and fluids.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/19/8389/
Yeah.. it is depressing.. deal with it.. we all have to!
Apocalypse Found
Coltan, Cell Phones and Crisis in the Congo
by Casey Bush and Joshua Seeds
The horror! The horror!” These are the famous last words uttered by Mr. Kurtz, a character in Joseph Conrad’s 1902 novella Heart of Darkness. Kurtz is an ivory dealer who set himself up as a jungle demigod hustling elephant tusks down the Congo River to a lucrative European market. That utterance, repeated by Marlon Brando as Col. Kurtz in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 movie, Apocalypse Now, says it all about the night- mare of the white man’s burden: a dark dream that continues today.With nearly every use of a new cell phone or compu- ter, American consumers depend on the natural element tantalum, which is extracted from coltan, a mineral often mined illegally in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC.
A tenfold spike in the price of coltan in 2000 brought attention to its lawless extraction in the Congo with head- lines like, “Coltan, Gorillas and Cell Phones,” and “Coltan Boom, Gorilla Bust.” As in the past with elephants, moun- tain gorillas and millions of innocent civilians today are being trampled in the quest for mineral wealth deep in the heart of Africa.
Earth Island Journal argues that the 2000 spike in coltan prices was caused by the launch of the Sony PlayStation 2 and a new generation of mobile phones. The irony of that observation was not lost on British Labour MP Oona King when she expounded, “Kids in Congo are being sent down into mines to die so that kids in Europe and America can kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms.”
The predominant use of tantalum is for capacitors, a component of electronics such as cell phones, computers, DVD players and video-game systems. Capacitors hold an electronic charge and are used for energy storage and the filtering of electronic fields. Superalloys made of tantalum and other metals are extremely hard and find their place in turbines for jets as well as parts for missiles and nuclear reactors. The versatile mineral is also used for surgical tools and medical implants because tantalum coatings do not react with body tissues and fluids.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/19/8389/
Yeah.. it is depressing.. deal with it.. we all have to!