Comments on: Solving the changing African climate – a Catch 22?

By: Odettaiv

Odettaiv — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 05:21:02 +0000

well done, guy

By: TMLutas

TMLutas — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 03:40:55 +0000

The best of Africa, the most educated, the most innovative, have huge incentives to leave Africa. The brain drain affects everybody in the less developed world but Africa’s among the hardest hit.

But Ireland has proven that even centuries of brain drain can be reversed in a few short decades if you change your laws and provide a climate that allows the innovative, the well educated, the hard workers to earn good money and you allow a generous return policy (Irish passports could be had if you were 1/4th Irish, just one grandparent).

If you can make money in a spot through honest work, if you can get into the country and be admired and not spat on, money, people, and talent will come and give you brand new economic problems (the good kind like how to adjust to all this new found wealth and economic growth).

There does seem to be a way out of the catch-22 of Africa but africans are going to have to choose to implement it. I do wonder if they will.

By: David

David — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:54:01 +0000

Since the whiteys left, Africa’s slide downhill has escalated.
Zimbabwe is a a prime example.
When it was Rhodesia it exported food, created jobs and provided clinics and schools for the poor.
Today the country is trashed.
From time immemorial, black tribes wandered across the face of Africa, killing the men of other tribes, raping their women and stealing their cattle.
Nothing much has changed since then – they’re still busy in the DRC, Kenya…the list goes on. As black tribes invaded other territories, they left nothing behind.
However, when the white tribes arrived, they built schools, roads, hospitals, airports, they introduced arithmetic and fried chicken.
But the world insisted that black tribesmen should have the vote and in so doing signed their death warrant.
The first thing the black tribesmen did was get rid of the whiteys who controlled the police and army and prevented all the fun of raping and pillaging.
But unlike the black tribes, when the whites were forced out they left behind a useable infrastructure most of which has been destroyed in the time since MacMillan made his “winds of change” speech.
On a recent trip through many countries in Southern Africa, the degradation and collapse of infrastructure is becoming increasingly evident.
The situation appears to be irreversible.
A couple of years of drought, increased cholera, yellow fever and aids could see an incipient collapse and death on a scale never before contemplated.
The situation is made worse by overpopulation, the chopping down of trees for firewood, over-grazing and a general ignorance of basic farming methods.
But hey, the guys can vote!!
I suppose they will vote Bob Mugabage in again and then whine to those ugly American whitey farmers and Brits for free food hand-outs.
Any wonder why most thinking people all over the world are becoming increasingly tired of dealing with these heathen savages.

By: Tom Walther

Tom Walther — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 23:02:00 +0000

I suggest you check out the Holistic Management International website: holisticmanagement.org. We are regenerating soils and grasslands on some 30 million acres of lands in Africa, North and South America and Australia through Holistic Decision Making. Working with nature and managing to a triple bottom line to implement policy and actions that are sound; financially, socially, environmentally, short and long term. As Pangolin suggested “focus on the soil” – and also on the well-being of people, other fauna and flora, the dynamics of the natural and man-made community, the effective functioning of the water cycle, effective cycling of minerals, and effective gathering into life of the continuous energy flow from Sun to Earth. We can make better decisions. Decisions that sustain and enhance life.

By: EnergyEngineer

EnergyEngineer — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:48:24 +0000

Ah Climate Change isn’t an issue that humans are effecting significantly. The planet is changing because of the Solar cycle. The UN scientists have this one wrong. And wouldn’t a warmer earth promote crops and wouldn’t a warmer earth put more ocean water into the air for more rain. Wouldn’t a cannal provide water and transportaion. Are we are not going into gobal cooling with excess amount of CO2 in the air

By: Pangolin

Pangolin — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:30:35 +0000

Focus on the soil. Africa has depleted soils and poor farming practices overall. It imports over 30% of it’s calories yet exports agricultural products to the North.

Terra Preta or biochar has the potential of radically transforming the productivity of Africa’s farmlands. There’s a test project in Kenya, check that out.
sources here:
ttp://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture

Don’t look offshore for anything but information. We can’t manage ourselves and our economies appear to be crashing. Good luck.

By: Vasco Pyjama

Vasco Pyjama — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:46:55 +0000

Sir, I have been spending much of my brain space contemplating these issues. Being a food/livelihoods type of person, I have been focusing on just food and livelihood issues. The issue of sea level rising and desertification scares the shit out of me. And that’s food security alone.

I am not an optimist either. We are going to have a holocaust. A slow unfolding one. People will survive, but more many more will die.