Lightning Flowers weighs the positive impact modern medical technology has had on the author's life against the social and environmental costs inevitably incurred by the mining that makes such technology possible
What if a lifesaving medical device causes loss of life along its supply chain? That's the question Katherine E. Standefer finds herself asking one night after being shocked by her implanted cardiac defibrillator for the first time. From the tantalum and tin mines seized by armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to a nickel and cobalt mine carved out of endemic Madagascar jungle, Lightning Flowers takes us on a global reckoning with the social and environmental costs of a technology that promises to be lifesaving but is, in fact, much more complicated.
Deeply personal and sharply reported, Lightning Flowers takes a hard look at technological mythos, healthcare, and our cultural relationship to death, raising important questions about our obligations to one another, and the cost of saving one life.
