Up in Smoke, the African Apocalypse, page 1

posted on Oct, 28 2006 @ 10:55 PM

link

African apocalypse: The continent burning into a desert - Independent UK

Somalia's harvest, brought in last month, is almost 30 per cent lower than normal, the result of the worst drought in at least 40 years. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation says that the situation is "alarming", with a "severe food crisis", affecting 1.8 million people, persisting throughout the country for at least the rest of the year.

The report bears out their fears with hard facts. "Africa is steadily warming," it concludes. "It is becoming clear that in many places dangerous climate change is already taking place." The six warmest years ever recorded in Africa have all been since 1987, it says, and in many parts of the continent temperatures are expected to rise twice as fast as in the world as a whole.

In all, according to other predictions, 40 per cent of Africa's countries will suffer "major losses" in cereal production. Yet four out of every five of its people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods - and the number of the desperately poor has almost doubled, to more than 500 million, in the past 25 years.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Climate change 'hitting Africa' - BBC

Droughts are getting worse and climate uncertainty is growing, the research from a coalition of UK aid agencies and environmental groups says.

The continent is, on average, 0.5C warmer than it was 100 years ago, but temperatures have risen much higher in some areas - such as a part of Kenya which has become 3.5C hotter in the past 20 years, the agencies report.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Report: Africa- Up in Smoke 2(pdf file)

• Dangerous climate change is hitting Africa hard say top aid and environment groups
• Africa: Economists Warn Climate Change Will Cost Trillions if Governments Fail to Act
• Millions of children face hunger in W. Africa - UN

War, famine and death go hand in hand - New Scientist

The four horsemen of the apocalypse are said to ride together. Now it seems that at least in the case of war, famine and death, it's true. That's the overwhelming message from a global analysis of malnutrition by the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, nine of the 12 countries with the severest hunger were racked by civil war or violent conflict. Many of the countries that score worst are in sub-Saharan Africa, marked in red on the map.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Can it happen in the United States? The answer has been blowing in the winds.
• Dust from Africa Leads to Large Toxic Algae Blooms in Gulf of Mexico - NASA
• West Africa Dust Storms Goddard Space Flight Center
• ATS: The Return of America's Dust Bowl Days

Many will argue nothing can be done, even though they have tried nothing and it will be a little too damn late when famine comes to our backyards. According to the UN, drought and desertification has already threatened the livelihood of one billion people in more than 110 countries. You think terrorism is bad now, wait til millions start shooting for food.

Globalization's Policy of Famine: Wheat Supplies Plunge 2006/10/25

Ten years to save the planet

Africa is burning, are we learning?

[edit on 28-10-2006 by Regenmacher]

forestlady

posted on Oct, 29 2006 @ 12:14 PM

link

Good find as always, Regenmacher. This is truly alarming, although those who follow such things probably already have an idea that Africa was getting pretty bad as far as desertification. And still, we do nothing. I've pretty much given up hope that things will change, our own govt (the U.S.) has sold us down the river. We have gotten way too disconnected from nature and we think it doesn't affect us, but it does.

I'm looking forward to reading the articles you posted. The one about the Gulf of Mexico being affected by Africa looks particularly interesting.

djohnsto77

posted on Oct, 29 2006 @ 12:21 PM

link

Most of Africa is basically a toilet. Wars, diseases, famine, and other problems have plagued them for years.

I doubt there will be any solution in our lifetimes.

La Balance

posted on Oct, 29 2006 @ 12:37 PM

link

Originally posted by djohnsto77
Most of Africa is basically a toilet. Wars, diseases, famine, and other problems have plagued them for years.

I doubt there will be any solution in our lifetimes.

If you read a bit..

You will know that Africa is a victim. Their ressources are pilleaged and controlled. AIDS was a virus introduced by man. On another note, the world is beautiful and we are light beings capable of anything.

factfinder38

posted on Oct, 29 2006 @ 03:03 PM

link

The majority of Africas problems are caused by Africans. Aid is used to by weapons and their is so much war that cost the money that could be used on farming and irrigation.
It is very sad but these people are going to die and their is nothing we can do to help them until they help themselves.

news.bbc.co.uk...

forestlady

posted on Oct, 29 2006 @ 03:31 PM

link

FactFinder, have you never heard of what the corporations have done to Africa? Have you never heard of how Belgian corporations raped the Congo for its diamonds? Of the political interference the west has committed in Africa? Did you know that Eisenhower ordered a coup in the Congo in 1959? Did you know that he took out a good man, a leader from Congo, that they assasinated him? And then replaced him with a U.S. puppet?

If you read the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, you'll get a much better view of what actually has halppened in Africa. It is fiction, but the historical events are real and the suffering that the Congolese experienced was real.

ArMaP

posted on Oct, 29 2006 @ 03:40 PM

link

Originally posted by factfinder38
The majority of Africas problems are caused by Africans. Aid is used to by weapons and their is so much war that cost the money that could be used on farming and irrigation.

Unfortunately, its not that simple.

Moçambique (or Mozambique, for those who do not use a "ç") is a good example.

After the war ended, in 1992, they started reconstruction, but as a country that lives almost exclusively from the tourism, the floods and droughts that they had affected all the economy.

They have recovered again, but you see that they are listed as one of the countries in an alarming situation.

The countries that have natural resources do not exploit them because the companies that do it are all foreign companies, the only thing they get is a reduced unemployment, but those companies usually use skilled labours from their own countries, earning big salaries, instead of promoting the learning of needed skills for the local population.

ineluki

posted on Oct, 29 2006 @ 03:57 PM

link

Originally posted by djohnsto77
Most of Africa is basically a toilet. Wars, diseases, famine, and other problems have plagued them for years.

I doubt there will be any solution in our lifetimes.

You obviously no nothing about Africa and how it has been systematically raped for its Gold,Diamonds,Coffee and numerous other resources. Not only has it been raped but its history has and is still being raped and twisted round to appease the people who cant bare to think that every person on this planet can find a black ancestor in there family tree.

Here is an example of this very thing..
www.stewartsynopsis.com...

djohnsto77

posted on Oct, 29 2006 @ 04:00 PM

link

I never assigned blame to Africans themselves, just made a statement about the current condition.

I know most of the problems in Africa today are a direct result of European imperialism that broke up the continent into states that don't match the tribal nations that existed before.

factfinder38

posted on Oct, 29 2006 @ 07:42 PM

link

I know that the corporations have raveged this land and many others but also remember that the leaders did get paid and paid well. Leadership in Africa is so corrupt it makes some other countries look like amatures. If you look at the reader responce section on BBC many of the people responding to the stories are Africans and they know what the problem is. Until Africa stops its corruption by its own people and controls its population and the spread of aids nothing will get better. Many areas in Africa have been so degraded by decades of malnutrition due to drought and wars that the people that are in charge and leading today have very limited brain function and have reverted back to animal behavior. Also you have religion and the Islamic wacos taking over and causing more war and death.

NotheRaGe

posted on Oct, 30 2006 @ 08:47 AM

link

If they do not come to their senses immediately, what is happening to them right now will not be the worst thing they are going to face in many years to come.

Harvests drop ---> more cheap GM crops import ---> local agriculture endangered ---> Africans get poorer ---> get loans --->natural resources exploited when unable to pay loan = robbing Africans of their wealth
Just one of the many examples how Africa is been exploited

It makes one angry to know how big corporations are making use of the plights of the Africans, how people are living in absolute poverty while living next to millions- dollar-revenue generating oil wells set up to benefit the oil giants and the corrupt govenments. How they are more interested in wars and genocides rather than economic development and healthcare. And how governments officials are having their pockets be filled while their country withers away.

And how environment becomes a victim while all these are happening.

MischeviousElf

posted on Oct, 30 2006 @ 09:27 AM

link

Brilliant coalesing of several true and ignored factors in most of humanities lives at present.

Brilliant Regenmacher though as usual genocide as well as what you have shown to be happening is now spreading in the Sudan and nothing is done about it as its Africa. well

You have already voted for Regenmacher this month.

m8 thanks sorry it cant be wats x3

regards

Elf

[edit on 30-10-2006 by MischeviousElf]