Apart from gold, no other metal has caused as much misery and destruction as copper. Forget your cocaine, forget fentanyl – the extraction, trade and purloining of copper is much more wicked and destructive.

In the coming years we’ll need more copper than ever. It’s not just gold that smartphones use – it’s copper too, in far larger quantities.

And what about the billion automobiles on the worlds’ roads? Swapping them for electric cars will require massive amounts of copper to make EV circuitry and batteries. Plus the power grids needed to recharge them all.

We think of fossil fuels as the worst threat to our beautiful planet – and so they are. But are we about to replace them with a zombie monster that’s even worse?