Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Quartz, if we don’t address the climate “issue”, everyone in Africa will jump on a boat and set up camp on our front lawns.
The climate-change refugee crisis is only just beginning
The Amhara Plateau is no one’s idea of a gloomy landscape. Rich fields blossom as far as the eye can see; bountiful rivers zigzag through the region’s rolling hills. It isn’t hard to see why local Orthodox Christians believe the Ark of the Covenant was floated down the Nile from Egypt and ended up here. Nor why desert raiders continually stormed in off the nearby Sahara for hundreds of years.
But to those who farm the fertile reaches of Western Ethiopia, their home environment is growing a good deal less enticing by the day.
Erratic temperatures and rains, which culminated last year in the total failure of the belg, the short rainy season, have struck locals hard. In a country still scarred by the deadly famines of the 1980s and 90s, reduced crop yields are panicking villagers, almost all of whom rely on agriculture for their livelihoods.
There’s plenty of evidence that migration in sub-Saharan Africa is partly due to extreme weather.
“The rains are very weak and in winter the cold is like nothing I’ve seen before,” said Barakat Daniel, gesturing at a mostly empty trench he uses to irrigate his teff crop on a muddy hillock just outside Bahir Dar. “It’s a hard life.”
For some ambitious young men, conditions have long since crumbled to intolerable levels. They’ve tired of tilling land that’s become harder to farm as older farmers sub-divide their already small holdings into miniature plots for their many children. With population growth overwhelming meager services at the same time as intense weather plagues farmland, more and more people from the region appear to be following the example of refugees from violence-afflicted parts of Africa, and making a break for Europe.
Read more: http://qz.com/605609/the-climate-change-refugee-crisis-is-only-just-beginning/
There are plenty of things wrong with African countries. Anthropogenic CO2 isn’t one of these problems.
According to the Australian CSIRO, according to NASA, the world is greening, thanks to CO2 fertilisation.
Extra CO2 improves plant growth rates, and resistance to drought. So whatever problems these unfortunate people are facing, to date at least, anthropogenic CO2 has incontrovertibly improved the availability of fodder, and boosted food crop yields.
I think it is disgusting that Quartz would attempt to play what is in my opinion a thinly veiled racist narrative, based on what I believe to be a falsehood about the effect of CO2 on arid regions of Africa, to try to get people interested in the climate issue.
That’s about as bigoted a scenario as could be imagined, to threaten us with migrants in this manner. The Sahara was a savannah during the glaciations. What happened? Never mind.
Not quite right: The Sahara was a savannah thanks to a stronger African monsoon during the holocene climate optimum when the world was about 2°C warmer than today. See e.g. here:
http://www.livescience.com/4180-sahara-desert-lush-populated.html
So, a WARMER (and not a colder) world would very likely mean a greener Sahara again, in addition to the likewise positive fertilizer effect of more valuable plantfood CO2 in our atmosphere…
Conflicting theories, but what the hell. My glaciology research many years ago described another circumstance, but the point is moot. Climate changed. Get over it.
“There’s plenty of evidence that migration in sub-Saharan Africa is partly due to extreme weather.” And what would that “evidence” be? I know, rhetorical question.
migration is due to:
1. corruption
2. everything else that results from corruption.
In the case of subSaharan Africa, migration is caused by the enormous increase in population, which the UN contends will reach 4 billion within 50 years. Its historic population was 15 million….Since Africa can’t feed itself even now, with all that useful CO2, there is no reason for optimism. Of course, the massive corruption in Africa doesn’t help…
Quartz? What in hell is Quartz?
Read more: http://qz.com/about/
Eric Worrall
But. What is their agenda, and do they admit their prejudices and biases when reporting and analyzing?
“bracingly creative … journalism”
Is that code for just made up?
Quartz is a 21st century virtual Daily Onion.
Exactly, for entertainment purposes only.
Quartz is just another online Organ set up and financed by someone with an axe to grind.
yawn There are so many to choose from
how come these guys get a 2 letter .com domain name ? It used to be impossible unless you were BT or something.
Ethiopia sells [hugh] swaths of land to agricultural companies,
displacing great number of smallhold farmers, sometimes forcefully.
Agriproduction is, however growing by leaps and bounds..
Lots of new irrigation projects, like Renesance dam, for example.
Being sold to make bio-fuels. The cost of teff in Ethiopia has risen drastically and lots of people do go hungry.
huge.
Hugh stayed home.
The western plateau of Ethiopia has been plagued with drought for years. The Rift Valley, on the other hand is verdant and can grow enough food for all of Ethiopia. In many years, the issue is transportation from one area to the other and on going tribal disputes that prevent food distribution in any case. My company was involved in projects in Ethiopia for 25 plus years … the main issue was on going disputes, not the ability to raise sufficient food … along with lack of infrastructure. Water and power was discontinuous in our time there.
Here is the money quote: “…more and more people from the region appear to be following the example of refugees from violence-afflicted parts of Africa…”
I don’t recall a trip there from the 80’s to about 2000 when I didn’t hear gunfire. Burned out tanks in the street on one trip, our office in Addis was damaged from a blown up ammunition dump nearby, teenagers were often in the streets with machine guns “patrolling”. Lots of “war” injuries in the streets. Easy to understand people wanting to leave that environment. The “climate” isn’t healthy depending on which end of the rifle you are on. But I am talking about a different kind of climate than is usually talked about here.
A shame then, that the most productive valley will be flooded out by salt water when the Rift Valley connects up with the Gulf waters.
But! There will be a natural dam-valley-power sluice that can be created to make some good of the descending salt water.
Egypt too could harness their basin/depression that way – but would need a longer tunnel/sluice.
That’s a few years off though…like maybe 100,000 maybe more. I would imagine humans would have bombed each other to bits before then.
You are correct Wayne. Nothing o do with climate change, CO2 or anything like that.
Transportation is an issue but so is poverty. There is no use transporting food to areas where the people can’t afford to buy it (which as I recall is the situation with many in the drought areas).
They say it themselves, too much population growth for the available food supply. Sounds like snowshoe hares and coyotes have the same problem at times.
Oh but its different for us, we are humans. (Sarc)
Er, sorry, we are all part of the same cycle. If you want enough food to go around stop banging out so many kids. Its self defeating.
Wrong.
“If you want enough food,”
then end:
1. the socialist governments’ forcing farmers off their land;
2. the corruption and foolish socialist regulations of the “dictatorship of the elite” (a.k.a. “socialism” – Friedrich Hayek) which prevent the free market from making farm equipment, electricity, and water readily available; and
3. wacko-science anti-GMO food rules which prevent Africans from selling their produce abroad, thus, making African farming unprofitable.
The problem isn’t procreation.
The problem is SOCIALISM and JUNK SCIENCE.
+1
Ethiopia experimented with communism once. Didn’t last too long fortunately. The biggest issue in Africa is “leaders” the likes of Amin and Mugabe who used their countries and economies like personal bank accounts, literally bleeding their countries dry. Mugabe’s palace in Zimbabwe is huge, opulent and full of luxury all the while the economy imploded and many went hungry due to hyper-inflation.
I thought the ruling party was communist. Is it really socialist? Since when?
The whole thing about small plots of land and them being unviable is a part of a larger story. If the country invests so much in military expenditure, how on earth can they develop irrigated agriculture?
If the climate warmed up another 2 degrees or so, the Hadley Cells would push north far enough for the Saharan rains to re-start and the whole western region, eastern deserts and Somalia would turn green again. The weather is indeed ‘extreme’ just as it has been for the past 6000 years. Only when it is warmer is that region (eastern Sahara) green enough to farm and raise livestock.
The drought isn’t nearly as bad as it was in the early 80’s. It goes to show that increasing the CO2 reduces the extreme-liness of the droughts. Causation or merely correlation?
You’re absolutely right Janice.
A good read on the subject of GMOs and Africa is Starved For Science – How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out Of Africa.by Robert Paarlberg.
There is no meaningful difference between socialism and communism as practiced in the ongoing experiments going on for year, now, in the world today.
Socialism and communism are: where bulk of the means of production are owned or controlled-to-the-point-of-ownership by the state along with the accompanying, inevitable, regulations, including no meaningful private property rights, heavy-confiscatory taxation, and almost-non-existent (or only at the whim of the government) personal liberties, e.g., of speech or contract. As Friedrich Hayek ably described it in his book, The Road to Serfdom, “the dictatorship of the elite.”
“years“
Thank you for bringing clarity to this.
A communist is a socialist in a hurry.
Janice Moore:
You assert
Absolute and offensive BS!
Richard
“Back to Quill’s point: A socialist government could control all of the means of production — or it could, for example, use taxes to redistribute resources among the population.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/do-you-know-the-difference-between-a-communist-and-a-socialist-a6708086.html
IOW, Communism.
https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Socialism
@richardcourtney – there is no difference between fascism and communism. They are both aspects of socialism. There is always a ruling elite in socialism that thinks it knows better how to run everybody else’s lives. The problem is there are as many, if not more, screwups working for governments as there are in the general population. A planned economy always has flaws in it. Government cannot adapt to economic changes nearly as fast as market forces do. Thus, if you are unfortunate enough to travel to Venezuela, take toilet paper. A college education doesn’t necessarily give you the skills to run a paper mill. In fact, it probably wont.
I love Churchill’s quote: “Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” I bring you the virtue of the green tyranny of Europe and Great Britain. The electrical grids of those countries are close to failure mode due to the fairy tale belief of the elites regarding free energy from solar and wind. Then there is the shared misery of skyrocketing electrical costs, some citizens having to choose to freeze to death rather than starve in winter, and little income to spare to keep the economies rolling along through the purchase of goods.
Every socialist government past and present has resulted in economic downgrades and failure, an increasingly wealthy elite, and an increasing loss of freedom and increasing misery for the general populace.
birdy…
New York city consumes much more food than it produces and yet it continues to thrive.
Coyotes may run out of hares to eat but, for hares, it’s different; they don’t run out of willows to eat, they get et by coyotes.
It’s a 3-way biological system at it’s simplest description. In real life, it’s still much more complex. It is still possible for hares to run out of food, but much less likely because of the stabilizing impact of the coyotes. Without coyotes, the hare population would oscillate wildly (in opposition to a similar wild oscillation in food supply).
I once had a lecturer that had done a mathematical analysis (Markov chains) of a predator/prey/food system – didn’t even need a computer, they just confuse the signal with too much self-generated noise. Very much like computerized climate models.
New Yorkers have money.
Said by someone who doesn’t live on the edge. Every society goes through a transition when the old necessity of producing 8 kids to bring 2 to parenthood suddenly, due to medicine and ‘development aid’, becomes 6 or 7 surviving to adulthood. It happened in Britain 100 years ago. Probably in USA too.
My grandparents’ generation had 6 – 10 kids, most of whom survived. My parents generation had 0 – 2. Mine had 0 – 3.
You go grind out a living and have your kids die on you. And don’t have any more……
There’s a test for you…….
As for solutions:
1. Condoms/birth control pills?
2. Refusal of entry of any Africans with more than 3 children as immigrants/refugees/migrants? That would focus minds, wouldn’t it?
Amazing how no-one confronts Africans about the essentials, yet is expected to grant them endless ‘rights’ if they ‘migrate’/invade other countries.
The day Africans become accountable for their own actions is the day they have grown up…….
Look at the EU.
Just sayin…….
Canary?
I’ve had this thrown at me before by folks who assume for some bizarre reason that because I don’t buy the Global Warming story I must be a racist, right winger!
I think they just assume that everyone operates on the same level as themselves!
“I think it is disgusting that Quartz would attempt to play what is in my opinion a thinly veiled racist narrative…”
You’re right on all counts. They who would control us all are without conscience.
“With population growth overwhelming meager services ”
Odd…one would think that “dangerous climate change” would inhibit population growth….the population is only a problem because they have no idea how to farm the land productively.
Do “they” really not know how to farm the land? What *were* they doing for the last few thousand years, I wonder… An article in the Guardian, of all places, sheds some light on this: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jan/23/quinoa-ethiopia-teff-super-grain. “Ethiopia’s growing middle class is also pushing up demand for teff, and rising domestic prices over the past decade have put the grain out of reach of the poorest. Today, most small farmers sell the bulk of what they grow to consumers in the city.” Also, “The Ethiopian government wants to double teff production by 2015”, which is to say, the government is telling the farmers what to do, regardless of what the farmers think is a good thing to do. “without careful planning, increased teff production for export may displace other important crops for farmers” (that is, when the farmers are ordered to produce more for export, there is of other things for the farmers to eat). http://allafrica.com/stories/201303050062.html says that “2013’s weather has been the best in years” suggesting that recent weather is just that: weather.
s/is of/is less of/ oops
Richard,
Was responding based on other articles I’ve read about the particular region mentioned in the op article. Young, primitive farmers will clear jungle land, grow crops on it as fast as they can raise and harvest it and then repeat that cycle over and over, with no rest periods for the land, no machinery to dig deeply and bring fresh earth to the surface, and no soil amending. Eventually all of the nutrients in the soil are gone, and crops won’t grow. So they move into another lush area, clear the land and repeat the cycle. Eventually they’ll have nothing but sterile top soil to work with.
That was my point.
Did they read the book. Population Bomb… I guess not. Certainty women in the western world did. Our economic growth has declined and people feel that we owe whats left to them? I don’t think it matters. Stop the refugees from coming. That’s the function of government is to protect the people who have set it up. And if they can’t, we will set up one that will.
If there is anyone wronger than Al Gore, it’s Paul Erlich.
Women stopped having so many kids because they no longer felt the need to have large families. It had nothing to do with nonsensical guilt trips by morons who have no idea what they are talking about.
“Gallup has been asking Americans “What do you think is the ideal number of children for a family to have?” since 1936, when the ideal number per family was 3.6, on average. This number declined between 1957 and 1978 to an average of about 2.5 children, where it remains today.”
Aside from the point that “fractioned children” make me laugh…sort of (if a .6 child marries a .4 child do they literally become one?” ba dum dum CHING) the number has technically only declined by one child per family. But to get that average you have to have couples who have less children than that, AND more children than that. Most of the people I’ve met in my life have the number of children they WANT to have, even if they have to adopt them, to get them. Guilt or anyone else’s opinion never enters their minds.
I know exactly what I’m talking about. The result is the same. Isn’t ironic that China has a one child policy and Europe doesn’t. Have an idea of what the birth rate is in Europe.? I’ve been to enough kum ba ya meetings to know. You’re just calling me a moron because I’m right.
“Isn’t ironic that China has a one child policy and Europe doesn’t.”
Yes, it isn’t.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/irony
Haitians have been risking their lives to flee their country for over FIFTY years.
Cubans for FOUR GENERATIONS have been risking their lives to flee Cuba.
(and Chinese and Ukrainians and many, many other nationalities are STILL leaving all they have ever known behind them… for a chance…)
The reason: socialism, i.e. government control of the economy.
AS IF human CO2 is why Africans flee Africa. As if.
AGW conjecture = socialist propaganda
Janice Moore January 31, 2016 at 8:52 pm
The Irish fled Ireland in the 1800s to escape English oppression. The Germans in the 1840-50s to flee a failed social revolution against the aristocracy Same with the Austro-Hungarians. And Poles? geuss. Hmm, Russians? Well someone throw a bomb at the Czar in the 1890s then a revolution in 1905 Why my Grandfather came to the U.S.A. Who knows, it was a secret kept from us. It doesn’t matter the economic system. Oppression is oppression. Socialism has been with us less then a hundred years. Oppression exploitation enslavement has been with us since Cain and Abel. And remember who it was that first used poison gas on the Ethiopians. Also remember that at the time Italy was a Monarchy.
Just noting Socialism could disappear and all of the worlds’ problems would remain.
your friend
michael
Yes, dear Michael D., but, that does not make socialism a good thing. Not that you said it did, but, you seem to imply that because it is not the only evil, it is not to be condemned, here. Thus, I write just to emphasize that even though socialism is not the final expression of oppression on earth, it must be spoken out against. It is the evil of the hour. When other evils replace it, they, too must be opposed and resisted fervently.
In the end, truth wins — every time. Though it be replaced eventually with another wicked lie, it does triumph — and the battleground shifts. And for those freed from the clutches of the lies of the hour, the fight is worth it. In the end…. God led the Israelites out of Egyptian oppression…. and in 1945 the nation of Israel was re-born…. and we got rid of Carter… and in 1989 the Berlin Wall fell… Saddam Hussein is dead… . Well, you get my point. Yes, I agree. The world, as a whole, will never eradicate tyranny. Wounded gravely, but not mortally, it slithers into the shadows, only to reappear on another shore… .
And the Warriors for Truth will go out, once again, to vanquish it!
Thank you for reminding me to beware ALL types of tyranny.
Your WUWT pal,
Janice
P.S. I have the feeling that your grandfather was a very brave man of high personal integrity of whom you can be very proud even without knowing the details. And I’m so glad that he came — for, well, here you are! And we on WUWT are the richer for it.
#(:))
Mike, read up on the oppression of the Irish, pretty much a dry run of socialism.
Govt stepped in, confiscated the land from private farmers and gave that land to those with political connections.
MarkW:
Ignoring that your account of the Irish potato famine is completely wrong, if your account were right then what you describe is NOT “socialism” but is ‘croney capitalism’ (i.e. a variation of the form of government now practiced in the USA).
Richard
So climate explains everything, right? (Climate science is like evolution according to Slate: it connects everything together.)
Does climate cause dictators?
Did climate cause Saddam Hussein?
“The rains are very weak and in winter the cold is like nothing I’ve seen before,” said Barakat Daniel
How old is Mr Daniel? They don’t tell us, so we don’t know how far back his memory actually goes.
And did Quartz understand that they just quoted a complaint about things getting colder, not warmer?
+1 — Very nice reading (as usual), Mister Sharp-eyes.
Yes, it is getting colder there. Here in the East Coast USA this winter we are warmer than usual thanks to el Nino which is fading fast. Next winter will be the usual reverse, that is, very cold. Yin/yang weather.
The ‘Quartz’ article may well be a highly contestable view, but is it racist? . . thinly veiled or otherwise?
I don’t see where a race has been demeaned or stereotyped.
I’d put it down as dog-whistle politics though.
I made a couple of comments on a FB page the other day. The OP was by Greg Barber, MP (Greens) In Victoria, Oz and he pointed out that a coal mining exploration permit in his urbanised rural electorate was due to expire in the next couple of months. He couched the headline as:
At time of writing his post has garnered 1211 ‘likes’, 648 ’shares’ and 594 comments, 99% of which assumed a mine was going ahead which was, unfortunately, entirely predictable.
Of course, when the permit lapses, he’ll ride in on his white charger and thank everyone for supporting his fight against the evil fossil fuel giants. Classic.
Or as most people describe it; Click-bait.
Ha this has been happening in that part of Africa for centuries. Today they have cell phones etc and know that it’s not the same everywhere. Subdividing fields among large families starved out the Irish a hundred years ago and the Greeks 50 years ago. The key is modern agricultural technology, capitalisation and new crops.
All three will displace more people as it did in the west 100 years ago.
If you’re growing the same 5 crops as everyone else your price will be dismal. Millions will emigrate. There is nothing wrong with mass immigration of people are willing to learn and adhere to the laws of the new land.
The catch is that we have just had two large immigration flows made up of people that reject first world law codes. One into Europe that is islamic, 80% will be sent back according to many of the governments involved. And one in America where there is a rejection of yankee rights to the southwest states and a hybridisation of drugs and the Santa Muerte, saint death, cults.
In both cases genuine refugees and immigrants are often the ones being harmed first.
Nothing to do with the climate except that now many illegal immigrants in Europe are feeling the cold and wanting to go home. Europe is not the pushover some islamists were told it would be. Once you know what the problem is screening, fencing, etc becomes easy and you can bring in millions of genuine refugees or expand western development, and laws, into their lands.
Wesley Bruce “Subdividing fields among large families starved out the Irish 100 years ago…”
I think you are referring to The Great Potato Famine, when the potato crop failed through blight. Since that was the only thing the Irish could afford to eat AND they were required to send their other produce to England (because their English overlords simply didn’t care about the problems of a bunch of Irishmen), they starved.
Part of my family lived through the famine in Ireland. My nan remembers the “black and tans”.
Between 1998 and 2007 China added 320 GWe of coal fired electricity (commissioning a new 400 MWe unit every 3-1/2 days) to the grid and in the process lifted 800 million souls out of abject poverty. Today there are 800 million living in similar conditions in sub-Sahara Africa. If you care about humanity and the human project, you would wish a similar ‘fate’ for African people. Release them from their mud huts and from burning (and breathing smoke from) wood, dung, and straw. They don’t need solar cells. They need real change now, not for their children or grandchildren. If the World Bank and the IMF won’t release the resources to do it, allow the Chinese to use their excess $$$ and industrial capacity to build for Africa what they did for the provinces. Go Deng Zhao Ping!
They already are – China and Japanese are competing to see who can finance the most new coal generators. Most of this action is happening in Asia, but with any luck some of China’s African trade partners will get a look in.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/09/13/japan-building-coal-plants-is-climate-finance/
The Chinese have had thousands of people working in Africa for decades. I flew out of Dubai on the way back to Canada via Hong Kong back in the 90’s and sat beside a nice Chinese lady from the Embassy in Tanzania. She was quite talkative and was quizzing me about my activities in Africa. At that time, they had in excess of 2000 people working in Tanzania alone. If I recall, their major project at the time was a railway into the interior but they had big plans. That was 20 years ago. There were then, and there still are lots of Chinese in Africa and South East Asia. Not an issue in my mind. They are providing lots of aid. They may have imperialist designs, but because the locals often perceive them as a risk to their way of life, they tread carefully (especially in SE Asia). They keep a low profile but they keep on doing things. Not too different from their activities in Canada, the US, and Europe. They prefer to be unnoticed because of how we in the west react to them.
I have seen some of the work done by the Chinese in Addis. I would call it laughable at best.
I reject the notion that subsistence farming, and using dried dung for fuel, is bad. The UN is selling this BS to support big donors who wish to take their land. This is evil writ large.
Sub-Sahara Africa has the lowest life expectancy and highest child mortality on the planet and it is not even close. So that population for their extreme daily ardor suffers a short disease prone life and cannot protect their children. That is my definition of not being fully human, with a chance to breathe free.
If you think the life style is so desirable, please try adopting it for a few years.
Gentlemen, China wants the land for ag. They have many mouths to feed. Western interests want the land, as biofuel is the latest fad. Mugabe can’t sell them the land, because peasants are on it, and there is no electricity. So Mugabe gets well meaning westerners to build power plants, so he can sell the land. The peasants will be driven off the land, FOR THEIR OWN GOOD. All with UN complicity.
‘That is my definition of not being fully human, with a chance to breathe free.’
Freedom is what they have. It is what they will lose, as well as their lives. They are in the way of African dictators making big money. Many millions will die. Westerners think that since rural Africans don’t live like them, it is a terrible existence. Man has lived that way since time immemorial. Get over yourselves.
Gamecock
No. China has always played the long game, and has never cared for their people. (One exception they have never forgiven their ancestor for: Their Chinese court refused to let their first admiral exploring India and Africa to return, thus giving up a chance to conquor the rest of the world as Chinese slaves. )
China wants Africa gold, oil, coal, and mineral wealth. And will do whatever it takes to take THAT wealth BEFORE they take their own land’s wealth – still “stored” safely underground in proven reserves. (In a war, they can always dig their own dirt and rocks. But in a war, they can always deny their enemy access to Chinese and Africa and MidEastern wealth and minerals and oil. )
Let’s do a swap then. They can have Australia, and we will take Southern Africa. Some of the best farmland, minerals, sightseeing anywhere, all screwed up!
I would go with West Africa, that’s where most of the expensive (Diamonds etc) are.
The reason for African migration is that now they have independence they realise that the colonial powers did a damn sight better job than they are doing themselves and want to return to British rule but do not want to admit it.
Or the Dutch or the Germans or the French.
I love this comment!
“With population growth overwhelming meager services …”.
================================
It’s not due to the birth rate, the birth rate of Ethiopia has fallen about 30% since 1960 but at the same time life expectancy at birth has risen from 38 to 63 years and that is largely but not solely due to modern medicine and infant survival, not a development any civilised person could possibly find objection to.
My former wife’s mother, although there are no official records, is believed to be in her late 80’s or early 90’s. And she had a hard life with all but two of her children still alive.
In many parts of Africa and Middle East the “Climate” is just too “plumbiferous” and that’s the main cause for migration, not weather! “Climate change” is just a welcome excuse for politicians!
I’m almost 60 years old and I have been told for most of my life that we have to send money to Africa because they are all starving there due to drought. Interesting how low grain prices are now. The reason? Good weather. Or good climate! 🙂
Actually, most of the aid and donations are consumed by corrupt rich people. Sad but true!
Most off the immigrants attempting to enter EU Europe are not from drought stricken Africa.
The top ten sources include Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq [understandable but little to do with weather/climate], Kosovo, Albania, Serbia and Ukraine [not African and not drought stricken], Pakistan [again not African and not drought stricken], Nigeria [African but not drought stricken] and Eritrea [in this case African and drought stricken].
What all these countries have in common in varying degrees, from moderately to totally, is dysfunctional government.
8 of the 10 countries you named have been recently subjected to western military terrorism, all “justified” by lies.
http://www.internationalist.org/iraqtorturea.jpg
“Look how dysfunctional they are!”
When you terrorize people, they tend to flee.
I worked here in Australia with an Iraqi who escaped the western bombs. He thought Saddam was much better than Captain America’s mighty shield.
Funny thing though that Japanese is not the official language of Australia.
He thought Saddam was much better than Captain America’s mighty shield.
Under the rule of all monsters, there are those who live well. A sample size of 1 means little. As for Captain America’s mighty shield, the disintegration of Iraq has more to so with its untimely removal than itz imposition.
The troll is back.
Why don’t you just go ahead and declare that everything bad that ever existed is because of the west?
If they were terrorized by the West, why are they fleeing to the West?
“What all these countries have in common in varying degrees, from moderately to totally, is dysfunctional government.”
Does that mean US citizens are going to start a massive emigration? In all my years, I’ve never seen such dysfunction in government as recently and, with the candidates most likely to be nominated for the presidency, it is about to get worse. Where do WE go? There is no “New World” waiting to take us in.
I was really hoping that we could delay the collapse until technology had made migration to other planets possible.
They have no shame. They are corrupt to the core.
Since when did CO2 cause faith-based colonisation?
Here is some free advice:
Whatever the climate does the Africans are going to head to Europe. Their population has quadrupled over the past thirty years and their political and social systems do not provide for the aspirations of the average African.
Europe is very close and very tempting and unless Europe grows some C.O.Jones pretty quickly there are sunk.
Too late. These migrants, typically, have nothing to lose so they risk it all, including their lives. The real big issue is false expectations. When African migrants arrive in the EU zone they truly believe the streets are paved with gold. When my former wife arrived in Australia from Ethiopia she was stunned to discover poor people, poverty and people living rough.
If dangerously insane Frau Merkel doesn’t do something – and I don’t mean reducing carbon dioxide emissions – and do it quickly to stop the Hieronymus Bosch-esque nightmare she has set loose on Germany, and the rest of Europe along with it, she will be set fair to easily wipe the floor with poor Adolf for the title of most hated German ever.
Well, maybe she will be the Chamberlain, and the one after her will be the Hitler…
Until there is an environment where peaceful and permanent settlement can be maintained leading to less expenditure on armaments; until tyrants and demigods can put aside their rapaciousness, then Africa will never be good example of anything. I do find it rather incendiary, the idea that Africans are somehow naive lesser beings that need the ministrations of liberal philosophy to maintain. Perhaps statehood itself is is not advisable for the Continent as a whole? South Africa’s rush to independence only produced instability and although the reasons for the change were commendable the sudden digression led to dissonances which are all too evident today. Perhaps the last thing you wanted to was to hand the country to nationalists who, but for one man, could have reeked havoc.
It seems that tribal Africa was far more resourceful and sustainable than imitations of western style democracy that pertain today. In governance, sustainability and longevity the tribal system sustained those self-same people, had a relationship between availability of sustenance and population by the obvious obvious constraints. The contrivances of the state are not applicable to all people and accession to mineral wealth has been a temptation too far for many, displacing the incumbents and empowering the superficial. Too much of the tone of joining with Africans sounds like juvenilia. There is no sound so egregious as the baby talk that western interlocutors use to engage with Africans,embarrassing baby talk and demeaning giggly banter.
Is Africa to be an agrarian civilisation that profits in terms of the limitations of its production or an industrial society that cannot be maintained by the lands of that continent in their current condition? It seems that we have had over a century of imposition of the latter model and been bewildered by the outcome that we as much as any other have contrived. Whatever the weather, putting a plough into feeble soil can only cause that earth to take to the air to no one’s benefit. The natural vegetation of Africa tells the story of African climate quite succinctly. Perhaps the Baobab should be the symbol of the place? Telling a tale of feast and famine?
Malcolm:
Interesting themes. But it should be ‘wreak havoc’. Or perhaps, since the two words share an etymology, ‘wreck’.
Sorry, Ethiopians are leaving because of climate change because it’s suffering unprecedented cold??
Incidentally, this winter (ahead of Paris) Addis Ababa was running 20C above trend. It was hotter than Riyadh’s summer. In mid winter. At 10,000 ft elevation. I was watching a big red blob on the temp map and the online weather reports.
In fact one especially hot night implausibly had a minimum mid winter temp that was higher than any daytime summer record.
I was in Addis in the middle of their summer in 2006 and 2007 and was praised for how I handled the heat. It was only 22c, maybe 26c max. When I explained that Addis is at a high altitude and Sydney, Australia where I live is at sea level, we get 40c+ days in summer out west where I live my friends, and my then wife, almost fainted. Jan 1st 2006, Ashfield, 47c, but only 27% humidity. Sheesh hot yes, but dry. Try Sydney at 27c and 90%+ humidity. Find a Westfield’s mall!
Patrick MJD – I think humans are highly adaptable. When I used to travel to Addis in November and December for project inspections, the locals would be walking around in coats while I, thinking how warm it was compared to Canada, was walking around in shirt sleeves. But then, I have experienced the same thing down in southern California – sitting outside sunning shirtless at 70 degrees F with the locals walking by in jackets and hats staring and asking if I was from Canada cause only the Canadians considered 70 degrees warm. Down in Nevada, I have often ridden horses in shirt sleeves with my American cousins riding with winter wear. I suspect even thin folks develop an extra layer of fat up here in the Great White North.
Well, gotta go put my snow suit on and go feed my animals.
I always received a warm welcome when in Addis.
In my opinion the war between muslims and non muslims is the problem n°1 in Middle East, Africa and elsewhere, even in the West countries.This war is fueled by the islamic countries with the oil’s money.
The current migrants invasion is part of this plot against Europe and the US
Whether it is thought out or as a result of the conflict, the result is the same. The people leaving are bringing their problems with them. All those Syrians are bringing their customs and laws with them. Does anyone remember these people have honor killings? Or oh, you’re wearing blue jeans, you need to get killed. Or you know a party is an affront to their religion. As if place matters. People matter and not the place.
My family lived in a city in the eastern US for over 200 years. It is now a slum. It isn’t the place, it’s the people who came in. They murder, rape, mug, steal, intimidate, and every other type of crime, but oh if only we lived in the suburbs. In 2 years the high school went from one of the top ten in the country to a special needs.
Some people with an agenda can’t destroy this country fast enough. (or Europe)
rishrac: I am much more optimistic about the future.
The company I worked at for 30 years had many employees from all parts of the world. Many engineers were from Iran. One of our companies did work in Iran for many years. The issue is not the general population, who are by and large, very good people, not much different from you and I. The problem, both in their country, Iran, and OURS, is the extremists/fundamentalists who refuse to adapt.
I have worked with good people from all over the world. The murderers, muggers, rapers, thieves and every other sort of criminal exist in every society including ours. Poverty and certain environments, social problems and a drowning level of acceptance of futility leads to these problems.
Now, I am no socialist, quite the opposite. I worked in an employee owned company for most of my professional career and some of my own little enterprises. I hate government interference while recognizing the necessity of some controls due to those who will push the rules envelopes to the limit.
On the other hand, some of the problems you refer to are a result of the current “Social Awareness” of western governments in particular. But governments don’t follow through so we end up with a lot of people stuck in a social cycle of poverty and crime with no hope of breaking out.
I don’t know the solution, but I do think we are the architects of the problem.
It will get worse.
I used to love reading Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. They believed strongly in individual freedom and self-reliance but their stories often spoke of the necessity of human co-operation and social conscience – even down to the laws of robotics and artificial intelligence.
These are issues of today. Some scientists and large corporations are speaking out against the development of artificial intelligence. They suggest we could have working artificial intelligence by 2040. They say if it is not controlled, it could eventually displace humans as unnecessary and harmful to their independence and well being. Now that is an interesting parallel.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/artificial-intelligence-human-brain-to-merge-in-2030s-says-futurist-kurzweil-1.3100124
Japan has recently developed and intelligent robot to pick cabbages, strawberries and other crops.
http://food.ndtv.com/food-drinks/japan-robot-can-pick-strawberry-fields-forever-for-farmer-694037
http://punditfromanotherplanet.com/2016/01/28/japan-inc-worlds-first-robot-run-farm-will-harvest-30000-heads-of-lettuce-daily/
http://web-japan.org/trends/09_sci-tech/sci091210.html
And inn Boston, MA:
https://www.harvestai.com/technology
Think of the displaced workers on corporate farms. At some point, we can see robots doing many tasks that humans do. Will we not need to provide “social services” to all those displaced workers? It has already started though it may be 50 years or more from now before it becomes a major issue, but as this new mechanical revolution proceeds, not everyone will be retrained to repair robots. People will not even be required to build them as it should become possible to have robotic factories. It will be a while. But think about the social implications. It will be be much bigger than it is now. Under this scenario, we will need a larger social network. I am fairly right of centre politically. I won’t be around to see this social experiment, but I do think a greater level of socialism/capitalism will evolve if this kind of development does occur.
Time for those of you who will still be around in 30 years to start thinking about the transition. Unless of course we regress into fundamentalism and abandon technology … which I strongly doubt.
Every major city in the US has experienced what I have experienced. There are soo many positions in the world where people work 30 years for the same company. Not.
The overall agenda is just I said they are. They’d whack your head off just for sport.
Speaking of the wonderful Iranians. I went to school with them before the revolution. They fully supported Ayatollah. To bad they were there in advanced calculus … I wouldn’t be worried if they could develop the bomb or not. There’s a difference between being a good mathematician and a brilliant one. It’s easy to copy, orders larger to invent.
We stop having children, we stop being a nation. Gradual change is one thing, to do so in a generation is suicide.
I am trying to preserve the western tradition, you sir are openly trying to destroy it. Name me an Islamic state that is free and democratic? Which Islamic state is taking in their Muslims brothers? On these boats to Europe, who gets killed? Do you really think they are going to honor the Bill of Rights? They won’t even read them.
Well Rishrac, if you own a large hunk of the company (employee owned, remember.), many people stay 30 years or more. We had some folks with 50 years, second generation of a company that was started in 1946 and one of the larger employee owned companies in Canada with several awards for being a great place to work and still going strong.
The welfare/ghetto cycle is a western issue that has persisted for ages and it exists in many other cultures in other forms. To blame it solely in immigration is un thinking. We are ALL immigrants in the Western Hemisphere, some for 10,000 years and some for 10,000 seconds. Who has adapted best to these lands? I think that is in the eye of the beholder and cultural bias. But that is just me. It’s what happens when you live and work in diverse cultures. Tolerance is a gift or a burden depending on your perspective.
I’m the only one that has to be politically correct in respect to everybody else. Meanwhile, there’s a bunch of people who burn and march over the American Flag. Those are the people the western world is inviting in with open arms. They place their spiritual values as being superior to mine. They are not coming here to adopt being American, they are coming here to take over. They have no history. We do. Everything we do is a waste of time. Down to playing chess.
A stupid Europe and US.
Ethiopians are leaving Ethiopia because there is little to no work there with massive increases to the costs of living (Teff for instance). Many are women who, in effect, be come slaves (Sometimes sexual slaves, difficult to prove). I know a relative, of my former Ethiopian wife, when to the Middle East as a house maid. Now I don’t know if she was abused sexually, what I do know is she was abused by the male member of the household in terms of beatings and demands. This PoS actually took her passport away from her. Anyway, after many calls I managed to get his wife and suggested that if they did not return her passport and allow her to leave, I would get authorities involved and even travel there to get the issue resolved. Two weeks later, my wife’s relative was reunited with her passport and returned to Ethiopia. Sad thing is, she wants(ed) to go back. Good thing is, we got her out!
Let’s see, 2 scenarios:
1) Boko Harum burns down my village and kills my family = I’m staying her in Africa.
2) Spring comes Early and fall comes late. = So I’m going to drift to the New World on a raft.
Anyone who thinks number 2 will ever be true is a blithering Id1ot. (IMHO)
I do remember the pitiful starving Ethiopian children thirty years ago, when the real issue was land redistribution by the Mengistu regime. Reads like the same sort of ignorant blather.
It hasn’t warmed at all in tropical Africa (and the CAGW theory even says so – the bulk of the heating has taken place in the Arctic. What happened to that part of the theory? I was in Lagos Nigeria in the mid 60s and it was monotonously the same temperature when I returned about 15 years ago. And isn’t the Sahel regreening? WUWT? The whole business of Africans shipping to Europe is a variant of ‘human trafficking’ only Africans are paying to be shipped these days because of a totally screwed up open door policy in the tattered remains of Europe.
Gary, I agree. From what I recall, the global warming from CO2 models project the warming at higher latitudes and not in the tropics. The premise of this article is not even supported by the vaunted but faulty models. The problems in Africa are mainly political and from birth rates that are still too high to be supported by the local economies.
“In a country still scarred by the deadly famines of the 1980s and 90s…”
He just has no idea what he’s writing.
I knew Ethiopia in 1970 when Selassie was still living & revered ; his son was hated & feared so the communists were getting their foothold. In 2010 USA aid there was $533 million, rising to $707 million in 2012.
A leaked State Department cable stated: “: Ethiopia does not…have…public disclosure of…expenditures…no independent auditors…national budget does not include over 100 state owned enerprises or the over 700 “endowment” companies owned by the ruling political party.”
Quote from pg.133 of ( 2015) book “Clinton Cash”, chapter titled”Warlord Economics”. In 2007 $20 million was pledged to Clinton Foundation by Amoudi who (among other benefits with dictator Zenawi, who died 2012) had his company “SaudiStar” “…given leases on tens of thousands of acres of Ethiopian land….”
Pages 128- 134 deal with Ethiopia & points out (pg132) that “…the government restrIcted Western food aid in certain regions for political reasons….” Aparently (pg130) “Zenawi’s policies pushed localpeople off their lands, decimated forests, and end encroached on game reserves….”
In 2009 when HR Clinton Secretaryof State another Amoudi’s “AlmedaTextiles” got loan guarantees when USAI “brokered a long term contract…to import textiles into the Unites States”. In 2012 she granted waiver over lack of Ethiopia’s “fiscal transparency” required by Dept. of State,Foreign Operations Related Programs Appropriation Act.
+100
Immigrants from Africa have been economic, absolutely nothing to do with the climate. Force feed a nation with handouts for generations rather than help develop their economy and see what happens. It comes as no shock to see that less than 25% of Ethiopia is connected to the grid, and has roughly 2.3GW installed capacity (6% renewables, 8% geothermal, 86% hydroelectric) for 80 million people.
Scratch that, it’s 2.3GW installed capacity for 94 million people. It worse than we thought! Pfft…
When my then wife and I drove out to the “whispering falls” 75% of the water that used to flow over the falls was diverted to a hydro plant. What I found contrasting was that all the huts near the falls had shiny new power meters. This was rural Ethiopia. Addis regularly had power outages, but no-one really cared as we all sat about drinking whiskey.
To be honest, I think they still don’t really care. It’s just the “cause of the month”.
What is it about liberals that their almost universally believe that minorities are incapable of taking care of themselves, and must have numerous govt programs in order to survive?
Uhh, just don’t let them in. Simple.
If they don’t let them in, they’ll never win another election, or be able to portray themselves as humanitarians, even though they truly are not.
To a liberal there are three types of Humans.
1) The Government Class
2) The Working Class.
3) The Victim Class
1984 Ethiopian famine: population of Ethiopia 34 million
present population of Ethiopia: 100 million
2050 population of Ethiopia (UN estimate) 280 million
But they still keep telling us that climate change is the problem.
My former wife lived through that ’84 famine.
In simple terms, doesn’t more greenhouse gases by definition mean LESS arid?
By 2010, climate numpties predicted there would be 50 million “climate refugees”. Problem is, none materialized, and here we are 6 years later, with presumably way more carbonostrophic global warm/climate change/chaos/extreme weather, and still no “climate refugee” number 1. What happened?
My mother was a proofreader, and I grew up with a bit of a knack for spotting errors.
So: “the Ark of the Covenant was floated down the Nile from Egypt and ended up here” – UPSTREAM?!
Don’t make me call someone a “snowcialist”
Cheers,
Gudolpops
Would be better if I had posted to Dr. Ball’s article….
Eric Worrall,
How nice of you to speak on their behalf.
What do CSIRO and NASA have to say about sub-Saharan Africa? Do you believe what CSIRO and NASA generally have to say about CO2-induced global warming? Specific to sub-Saharan Africa?
Have you taken into account which species most benefit from CO2 fertilization? Is the rate of anthropogenic greening due to CO2 greater than the rate of anthropogenic deforestation? Do food crop species on balance do better than noxious weed species?
No amount of additional CO2 makes up for near complete lack of water, which is what happens during extended periods of drought. It also does nothing for thirsty livestock, or thirsty humans … both of which ALSO depend on the food crops which aren’t growing for lack of water.
Ahh, “to date at least”. Ok fine. Let’s just wait until it’s “incontrovertibly” clear that anthropogenic CO2’s alleged present net-benefits have clearly tipped to the net-negative side of the ledger for sub-Saharan Africans. What are the indicators for this? How much of the rest of the world needs to de-green? What multiple of the present rate of starvation, thirst and heat-stress deaths (and migration away therefrom) is the threshold for acting?
What’s the proposed action at the point where it’s “incontrovertibly” clear to you that CO2 is part of problem? Suck it back out of the atmosphere and put it somewhere? Does “adaptation” include methods for reconstituting the people who gave up their lives in the name of your science of “incontrovertible” certainty?
You’ve not “incontrovertibly” demonstrated a thing here except a dubious ability to declare, with a straight face, that “CO2 is plant food” is absolute proof that whatever is going on in sub-Saharan Africa cannot possibly be attributed in part to its purported warming influence.
That’s got to be one of the most unintentionally ironic things I’ve read on these pages in a while. A bit like the double-dog dare (or the double-down as the case may be), I think you might have just invented the double-dog whistle. And oh look … I’ve just trebled it.
I don’t think it’s a case of not caring. It’s more a case of being impotent and not being able to do a single thing about it. BUT, most people fall for the BS in the media and the media just love climate change alarmism. So the gloves are off on facts and truth, any rubbish will do. It sells!