I agree! The climatologists are now fighting misinformation on 2 fronts: the climate Deniers that say there is no climate change and therefore no point trying to do anything about it, and the climate Doomers that say it's already too late - we're extinct in 5 years! So "eat drink and be merry - for tomorrow we die!" In other words - there's no point doing anything. The last Aaron Sorkin show "The Newsroom" had this great scene - did you see it?
So I agree that it is not be the end of the human race. Some nations might collapse into Mad Max - others might actually benefit! Well - let me rephrase that - if they can survive the waves of immigration - some of their
sectors might benefit (EG: Canadian agriculture, access to the Arctic, etc).
However, my understanding is that SSA (Sub-Saharan Africa) and basically any poor nation probably don't have the right economic infrastructure to deal with climate change - and certainly don't have the money and resources to adapt to it. Check this out!
5. Conclusion
The key findings from the literature reviewed in this study are that extreme weather events resulting from climate change have a direct impact on agricultural production (
Mashizha, 2019), because of the climate-dependent nature of agricultural systems. Agriculture is the major occupation in SSA countries; this makes them more vulnerable to climate change, especially so with regard to the livelihoods of both farmers and herders (
Apraku et al., 2021,
Eleblu et al., 2020). The impacts of drought are particularly significant in many SSA countries, where agriculture constitutes employment and the main source of income for the majority of the population. Extreme events pose a danger to people's lives, livestock and the ecosystem. Such events may perhaps trigger more of the already high rates of under-nutrition and infectious disease in the region. Assessment of relevant literature and climate change projections for SSA countries points to warmer temperature trends with frequent occurrence of extreme heat events, decline in rainfall, and increased aridity in the southern and eastern regions. A reduction of land suitable for agriculture has been projected in the next few decades, as many lands with high agricultural potential in SSA are becoming arid. Extreme events have been predicted to occur more often in Africa in the next century as a result of climate change. Drought is a major extreme weather event which threatens livestock sustainability in SSA, as climate determines the composition of pasture which in turn determines the level of fodder self-sufficiency and its sustainability. What is obvious from the literature is that the analysis of climate extremes such as drought is complex and is affected strongly by the balance between precipitation and
evapotranspiration and the concomitant effect on soil moisture. The regional drought record has been observed to be driven by increased temperatures combined with low precipitation and reduced soil moisture. Studies have reported the impacts of drought on both crop and
livestock production in many parts of SSA. The majority of these studies have noted ways by which extreme climatic events can affect agricultural productivity, but patterns of vulnerability, exposure, hazard and risk vary among countries and within different agro-ecological zones of SSA. With the increase in temperature and precipitation erratically distributed across sub-Saharan Africa, agricultural production has been declining within recent decades, particularly wherever drought events are frequent. There is a high likelihood that the hydro-climatological patterns of different ecological zones in SSA would be altered as a result of climate change, with consequences for the availability of water resources for the agricultural sector (The Ministry of Environment of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2003). All of these combine to affect water resources, including groundwater and surface water, in specific ways (
Carrière et al., 2021,
Ayanlade et al., 2022). It is clear from the present study that SSA is one of the most vulnerable regions to extreme climate events, as the livelihoods of the majority of the population depend on
rainfed agriculture, yet many smallholder farmers lack adequate
technology to adapt to extreme climate events. Thus, the vulnerability of SSA countries to climate change is high, because of their low capacity to adapt to climate change. Adaptive capacities of farmers to climatic change are higher in the developed countries than the developing countries because of their access to more technology. There is a need for effective technology transfer from the Global North to the South, to encourage building resilience and enhance adaptive capacity in SSA countries.
