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Grim Outlook for Africa's Future

Submitted by alexgrinaldi on 29 November, 2005 - 2:25pm. Planet Earth Blog

Grim Outlook for Africa's Future - Africa accounts for only a tiny percentage of the fossil fuel emissions that contribute to global warming, but the continent's poverty leaves it hard-pressed to deal with the coming catastrophic effects of that warming. [Planet Earth]

In the article, “Grim Outlook for Africa’s Future,” the effects of global warming on Africa are discussed. Ok, so we all know global warming is a major issue that needs to be taken care of as soon as possible, but for Africa it needs to be taken care of now! They are having problems left and right and are unable to do anything about them. Like it is said in the article, forty percent of the people live on less than a dollar a day. So they are not able to really help fix what is going on. With the African animal life decreasing because of global warming, many of their native species are going away. That is not good at all! It is happening because of everyone’s global warming. There needs to be a new way to get energy and stop burning so many fossil fuels. If something does not happen soon there will be no more beautiful reefs in eastern Africa, there will be no more cool safari tours to take your kids on to explore Africa, there will be no more of anything that makes Africa unique if global warming continues. For goodness sake, the top of their tallest mountain is starting to melt! In the article it says, “Rising temperatures at higher altitudes could also quadruple the number of South Africans at high risk of malaria by 2020.” They already cannot afford to treat their smaller diseases now, and AIDS is a huge epidemic over there, so what is going to happen to the population with more people being infected with malaria? Something needs to be done. Also, “With weather becoming more erratic, communities are finding themselves with little time to recover from one disaster before being hit with the next.” We thought hurricane Katrina was bad, look at their flooding. They do not have the resources to evacuate into new places of shelter and the availability to just move from one place to the next. It is going to take them much longer to recover from their natural disasters because they happen so often and have no time to fix the old and prepare for the next disaster. Another problem for them is going to be what they produce. They have been producing maize for a very long time with the weather being pretty stable with a lot of rainfall. Well they are going to have to find something else that can grow in theses new hotter and drier conditions if they want to continue to have a staple crop. This does not seem fair to the people of Africa. The effects of what has been going on for the past year will continue to hurt the world for an extended period of time. But if we find alternative sources for fuel there is hope that one day global warming will be eliminated. We need to do something now, no matter how much it costs, because you cannot put a price on the world.

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I agree with the fact that

Submitted by d valdez on 6 December, 2005 - 2:19pm.

I agree with the fact that global warming is an issue that needs to be dealt with immediately, not only in Africa but everywhere. People do not seem to care they are slowly destroying the ozone, and probably will not begin to care until it begins to affect them personally. Africa is already being affected dramatically, but the problem is Africa does not have the money or the resources to do anything about it. America has more of a chance to do something to actually have an affect on the rising destruction of the ozone, but nobody will do anything about it because people are too concerned about wealth and themselves. There are not enough people in this world that care about the ozone to actually do something about it. The people who do care are not exactly the wealthiest people in the world and it will take a lot of effort and money to do something about this problem. This problem will continue until people realize that the deterioration of the ozone will have an affect on them in the long run. People are entirely too irresponsible to care about something that will not affect them in their life time, but they do not realize that what they do or do not do, could possibly kill their children. People need to open their eyes and take responsibility for their actions.

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(Sigh) Capitalism. Gotta love it.

Submitted by chagar on 29 November, 2005 - 3:13pm.

The issues of Global Warming are obviously a big deal. There are probably a handful of social groups that are concerning themselves with the problem as we speak, but the concern of the destruction of our Ozone is more or less an issue back-logged in the general populace’s mind. In other words, we believe that the issue is someone else’s problem, and we’ll deal with whatever comes up in our own style. This is a cynical ideology, but it is how most capitalists think . . . “if it doesn’t benefit us to deal with it (even though it will eventually), then we won’t bother.”

On the other hand, fuel-efficient modes of transportation are making headway. The demand for cheaper and more cost-efficient vehicles is increasing with the rise in gas prices; therefore the desire to come across a company with a fuel-efficient line of transportation (probably hydrogen-wind fuels) will be up, up, up! Whoever owns this company or invents the vehicle or fuel type will be rich, which will further increase the speed of production for this transportation. This will definitely (if by a small amount) improve our standing with the environment, even though the initiative isn’t to benefit the Ozone. Three cheers for Capitalism!

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