How can we mitigate the impact of climate change in Africa?
US intelligence agencies are adding climate change to the factors contributing to global political and social instability in the coming century, and single out Africa as an area likely to be especially hard hit.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27804489/
What actions should be taken to prepare Africa for the challenges of climate change?
(jimz) listed the third on the list. The government policy(state of affairs) is number one. With restrictive accesses to GM or selective seed depositories being second. GW rank at the bottom of the list.
Get them some fans and AC units.
Drought is the major problem, and is getting worse as things heat up, but a large part of the economics of Africa is oil money and how to get that profit to support agriculture when the money from oil profits rarely gets to anything but the military in most of these countries.
An alternative fuel for the world to non-renewables can be easily made from sewage wastewater, that’s right, SEWAGE WASTEWATER.
It has an EQUAL weight in dissolved solids to water, easy to grow cyanobacteria (blue-green algae common name) and other algae and organisms that are literally squeezed for the oil to refine to biodiesel.
For a city like Phoenix where I live this is 10-million gallons a day of wastewater, so that’s over 80-million pounds of nutrients in an equal weight of water to produce algae from every day. Ask your local farmers how much 80-million pounds of fertilizer would cost along with 10-million gallons of water to grow things with. That’s the value of this resource which is not a food for people yet, grows with population as no other renewable I’m aware of does, and every town with a wastewater treatment plant has it.
The "refineries" are about the size of a bedroom and cost about $150,000, no reason to truck fuel thousands of miles or have super-tankers full of oil at sea if you produce transportation biodiesel locally.
If a poor nation can make it’s fuel from sewage, they can end the energy debt to oil-rich nations, reduce the pressure on militias and armies to war over non-renewable resources, and, when the algae are done with producing the biodiesel, the water is almost pure so is treated to be potable again, recycling all of it back into the drinking water system. This is really important in drought areas with dwindling water supplies.
The economics of this strategy to get biofuels will destroy the oil industry profit machine so you can be certain those evil creeps will be violent about not letting it happen.
Overall, the biodiesel produced from sewage will cost about 75-cents a gallon at the gas station in the USA, ready for that? Still want the oil companies running your country?
Until "Africa" becomes a State or Protectorate of the US…nothing at the Federal level. You are more than welcome to donate all of your time and money how ever you see fit. Instability in Africa is not a security issue to the US, or its interests.
You will save more lives just by providing mosquito nets, delivery system of basic anti starvation supplements, and basic hygiene than all the Kyoto protocol, CO2 conserving inefficient reductions you protest for. Malaria and starvation will kill millions of people in Africa over the next ten years whereas any warming damage will be mitigated by the increased number of lives which are saved by warmer climates period. No time to delve much deeper.
money makes the difference. its the poor folk and the poor countries that will suffer worst. contraction and convergence, tradeable carbon allowances would be one way of getting it there. of course, you also have to address corruption and war or its pouring money down the drain. microfinance targeting women has shown to be very effective, and the ‘billion trees’ project has been encouragingly successful.
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/0513-trees.html
here’s a good african site, lots of pieces on climate change, especially this year, as it seems to have been drought everywhere that isnt flooded.
http://allafrica.com/
None. Climate change is been a part of Earth’s history for millions of years….. with…. and without….. Man.
It is just more nonsense from nonscientist political hacks pretending to be experts on science. They are not. Northern China and Africa are going to suffer droughts. Gee isn’t that a difficult prediction as if they haven’t already suffered them always.
Most important will be water conservation. I do not mean turning off the tap while brushing your teeth kind of conservation, I mean doing land contouring and even building dams to conserve massive quantities of water, enough to irrigate vast areas of desert and near desert.
Then will be the need to move that water to the places it is needed, be it by canals or giant pipes, pumps.
We can not depend on drilling wells primarily, nor on reforestation where there is not enough water to sustain existing stands of trees.
And food availability is a function of water availability and distribution.
Giving people more money is not the primary solution. More money trying to buy non-available food just raises food prices.