The world is seeing the human cost of climate disruption playing out across the Horn of Africa. Severe droughts, erratic rainfall and rising temperatures have tipped nations towards famine and left communities fighting for survival. But it's also a man-made crisis and one that we can address both in the short and long term reports Joe Ware.
The droughts which have engulfed East Africa have left millions of people on the brink of starvation in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya. The effects of dry El Niño years, amplified by climate change-induced high temperatures and erratic rains, have led to food shortages, dead livestock and the subsequent loss of livelihood for millions of people.
In Northern Kenya pastoralists have suffered not just from a lack of rain, but also unexpected flash floods. At the end of a dusty road, snaking through the flat, low lying, lava-rubble plains of the Dida Galgalu desert lies the village of Burgabo. It has one of the oldest boreholes drilled by the colonial government in 1954. Burgabo is the only watering point for miles around and the high temperatures, long trekking distances and extended waiting times has claimed the lives of thousands of small livestock. Many donkeys, the main form of transport for pastoralists, have also perished.
Read more at The Ecologist
Photo credit: Oxfam East Africa via Wikimedia Commons
