Desertification to The Sahel
The region known as the Sahel is a wide stretch of land running from
the Atlantic ocean to the African "Horn", an area that contains the
countries of Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Somalia And it is the strip of
land that separates savanna from the desert, the issue I have been
researching is Desertification to the Sahel, in other terms, The Sahel
is shrinking at an alarming rate. Animals have been allowed to graze
on its fragile land, which has destroyed the vegetation. The people
who live along the Sahel have caused it to shrink by cutting trees and
bushes for fuel.
Global climate change is when the world's climate is changing
temperature and the weather around us is changing.
The causes of global climate change are, CFC gasses, methane. But 98%
of total global greenhouse gas emissions are natural (mostly water
vapour); only 2% are from man-made sources.
In this part of Africa the effect on peoples lives has been that there
country is getting hotter and Dryer, and it is causing The land to dry
out and stopping them growing crops and supporting there families etc.
The message in the issue statement is, 'It's a waste of time and money
trying to save this zone, move the people out.'
The Sahel zone has been made virtually uninhabitable from the effects
of Desertification. There is a lot less amount of crops being produced
by the Sahelian farmers. About 50 years ago farmers use to produce 7
times as much produce as now.
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This is a climate graph for Ethiopia, which is in the Sahel zone, and
as you can see on the Temperature is very high and the average
precipitation is low for what the temperature is in most months.
The people affected by Desertification and climate change could move
further south of Africa like Cameroon or Congo or other county's
around that sort of area, We could do this by Transporting them all by
bus, train or car if it is possible.
“Clearing a rain forest to plant annuals is like stripping an animal first of its fur, then its skin. The land howls. Annual crops fly on a wing and a prayer. And even if you manage to get a harvest, why, you need roads to take it out! Take one trip overland here and you'll know forever that a road in the jungle is a sweet, flat, impossible dream. The soil falls apart. The earth melts into red gashes like the mouths of whales. Fungi and vines throw a blanket over the face of the dead land. It's simple, really. Central Africa is a rowdy society of flora and fauna that have managed to balance together on a trembling geologic plate for ten million years: when you clear off part of the plate, the whole slides into ruin… To be here without doing everything wrong requires a new agriculture, a new sort of planning, a new religion” (524-525).
Desert Solitaire aims to draw attention to the activities of a man voluntarily isolated in nature. It seeks to identify the strife that Abbey faces with modern day human’s treatment of his nature. As such, the argument that Abbey poses in one his earlier chapters Rocks is, that the Modern Day man is destructive and cannot be trusted to preserve nature as is.
Antarctic’s ice melt and accelerating sea level rise, the growing number of large wildfires, intense heat wave shocks, severe drought and blizzards, disrupted and decreased food supply, and extreme storm events are increasing to happen in many areas world wide and these are just some of the consequences of global warming. The fossil fuel we burn for energy coal, natural gas, and oil plus the loss of forests due to disforestation, in the southern hemisphere are all contributors for climate change. In the past three decades, every single year was warmer then the previous year and the warmest 12 years were recorded since 1998. We are overloading our atmosphere with carbon dioxide and trapping the heat and recently, the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere reached 400 pmm. Not just environmental issues are rising due to carbon dioxide increase but more and miscellaneous issues are appearing as climate change becomes more severe. For example, regional models and local analyses agree that Mongolia has become noticeably warmer and the climate change effect is damaging their millennial of historic nomadic lifestyle and even came to the peek of extinction. The Mongolian nomadic pastoralists became highly vulnerable to many an unusual climate impacts and extreme temperature fluctuation that have led to inadequate pasture land and loss of enormous number of livestock, often faces hostile environmental conditions that led o entrenched pastoral poverty. This essay focuses on how the climate change impacts the qualitative and quantitative value of indigenous culture and nomadic life style, and how the economy struggles in the magnitudes of massive migration of nomads to urban area while it fails to value t...
The critical thinking assignment for this week entails two questions, describe the hydrologic cycle and apply it to where I live, and secondly choose a landscape either glacial or desert and describe how it forms, as well as the landscape features found on it. I will use this essay to answer both questions. I will be using my hometown of Napa California to answer the first question and I have selected the Mojave Desert landscape to answer the second question.
The clock is ticking! Global Co2 emissions have increased exponentially since the industrialization of today’s developed world. Emissions have now passed the absorptive capacity of the earth and are accumulating in the earth’s atmosphere, warming the surface of the earth and inducing localized climatic changes. Climate change is often a localized issue. Many regions of the world will continue to become hotter, while others may experience highly variable weather patterns. Climate change poses a serious threat to ecosystems, economic sectors, and human welfare. Although almost entirely caused by the developed world, climate change will disproportionally affect the world’s poor.
The dispute over Western Sahara dates back to 1975 and is Africa’s longest-running territorial dispute. Western Sahara had been a Spanish colony since 1884. Although Spain surrendered the territory in 1975, Western Sahara failed to gain national independence. Instead, Mauritania and Morocco filled the void, and Mauritania ceded its claim to Morocco in 1976. The nationalists in the region responded by forming the Polisario in 1973. Supported by the Algerian government, which has a longstanding rivalry with Morocco, the Polisario waged a guerilla war against Moroccan occupiers and to this day, the conflict between the Polisario and Morocco has not been resolved. In April 1991, the United Nations established MINURSO, the United Nations Mission for a Referendum in Western Sahara. It’s brief was to implement a peace plan outlined in a 1990 Security Council resolution and broker a ceasefire. While the ceasefire held, the mission was never fully deployed and the negotiations have been at a standstill since 2004 after UN special envoy James Baker resigned. The Polisario believes that the status of Western Sahara should be determined by its people, but Morocco claims the territory as its own.
In the article, “The Great American Desert”, Edward Abbey (1977) is trying to convince the general public that the desert is not a place for humans to explore. He talks a lot about the dangers of the desert and tries to convince the readers that the desert is not worth wasting your time and going and visiting. I disagree with Abbey. Anyone who has some knowledge about the desert and takes a class or is accompanied by an expert who knows a lot about the desert should be able to venture out in the many great American deserts.
One sector that is particularly threatened by the climate change is the agricultural sector, because the amounts of water, sunlight, and heat available are important determinants in the crops growth process. Although some of the changes, for example higher temperatures and longer growing seasons, might bring benefits (especially to countries in the Northern hemisphere), others like reduced water availability and frequent extreme weather events would definitely have adverse effect on the sector affecting the crop yields and the food security around the world. Moreover, most impacts are likely to occur in areas already exhibiting socio-economic and environmental difficulties (water scarcity is an example), such as the countries in tropical and sub-tropical regions (African countries are among the most endangered ones). As a result, farmers will have to adjust their practices and technologies of production in order to be able to continue meeting food requirements. Nevertheless, the effects of global warming will be uneven across Europe, which could res...
Works Cited Attoh, Samuel Aryeetey, ed. Geography of Sub-Saharan Africa. 3 rd. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. Book.
Global warming and global climate change is the study of future increases of temperature across the globe. Studying climate change refers to how the over- all climate will change such as the dry places getting dryer and the wet places getting wetter. Global climate is dependent on “the greenhouse effect a natural process that helps regulate temperature” (Easterling and Karl). In the past few centuries humans have had a monumental effect on increasing of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Climate change is result of the increase amount of the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere such as methane, carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrous oxide, and ozone. “Global temperature has rose approximately 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over
In this essay, the effects of climate change on agriculture and how to manage it shall be discussed. Climate change has and will greatly affect agriculture. As time progresses, the effects of climate change will worsen and become detrimental. Mendelsohn and Dinar (2009:1) state,” if future climate scenarios lead to a widespread reduction in food supply, there could be massive problems with hunger and starvation”. Climate change is a change in global climate patterns which is mainly caused by the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by fossil fuels. The writer chose this topic because climate change is a global problem that will pose a threat to people’s lives around the world and must be dealt with sooner than later.
The Namib Desert The Namib Desert is a parched and rippled desert, an endless expanse. It stretches along the southwest coast of Africa from Angola in the north. through Namibia, into South Africa. The name Namib means “emptiness.”
The backbone of a stable nation, socially and politically, is agriculture. Agriculture is the largest sector that provides a nation with food and employment. Agriculture is currently being affected by climate change and at the same time it is also a contributor to climate change. The drastic elevations in climate change started from the mid to late 20th century and they have been increasing since then (Boisvenue & Running 2006). Climate change is affecting agriculture by interfering with the efficiency of crop production. Agriculture is facing droughts, flooding, sea level elevations, natural disasters, and health hazards for employees. All of these exponents lead to crop failure that creates famines and food prices to rise. On the other side, agriculture is also contributing to climate change through their output of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprints. These are caused by the activities that agriculture engages with such as breeding of livestock, ploughing of fields, deforestation, and the use of pesticides and other agrochemicals. Climate change affects countries differently, mainly due to their ability to adapt and their geographical location. Canada and Russia benefit from the changes in climate while Sudan and Bangladesh are affected negatively, struggling to adapt. Agriculture and climate change are interrelated processes that exist mutually making it harder to reduce one without affecting the other.
Global Warming is a condition caused by greenhouse gases and human activities. The increased concentration of greenhouse gases due to activities such as deforestation and fossil fuel burning is causing the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans to warm up. As a result of this, global warming has some serious effects in the shape of extreme weather, species extinctions, and rising sea levels. These effects can contribute to the changes that are taking place all over the world, most of which are dangerous enough to pose a threat to the survival of life on Earth in the future.
One of the main problems that are happening to the Sahara desert is the continuing development of the boundaries of the desert. This is known as desertification. As global warming continues to increase, the probability of more desert regions becoming bigger is more likely.