Bishop Hill Bunting on the Sahel
Nov 1, 2010 Climate: other Madeleine Bunting is waxing lyrical about climate change in the Sahel, the semi-desert fringes of the Sahara.
For years now, the elders explain, they have been worried by climate change. Disrupted rain patterns, shifts in winds have no parallel in collective memory; they notice how it is prompting changes in the behaviour of animals and birds. But all of these anxieties are dwarfed by the sand dune now looming above their town – the result of those drier, fierce winds and erratic, intense rainfall.
It is worth comparing the doom-laden prognostications of Ms Bunting with a more scientific assessment of how the Sahel is doing.
recent findings suggest a consistent trend of increasing vegetation greenness in much of the region. Increasing rainfall over the last few years is certainly one reason, but does not fully explain the change.
National Geographic did an interesting article on the subject a while back.
Desertification, drought, and despair—that's what global warming has in store for much of Africa. Or so we hear. Emerging evidence is painting a very different scenario, one in which rising temperatures could benefit millions of Africans in the driest parts of the continent.
Reader Comments (26)
From the NOT All Gloom and Doom Department.
Paraphrased from Indur Goklany on WUWT
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/29/an-inconvenient-truth-%e2%80%94-biological-productivity-of-the-tundra-has-increased-since-1981-perhaps-due-to-warming/
In its October 14, 2010 issue, Nature magazine (p. 755) reports on a paper by J.M.G. Hudson and G.H.R. Henry, Increased plant biomass in a High Arctic heath community from 1981 to 2008, Ecology 90:2657–2663 (2009). based on data collected from study plots over a 13-year period and survey data covering 27 years on the tundra of Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada, an area where both temperatures and the length of the growing season has increased in recent decades: “The biomass of mosses has increased by 74% and that of evergreen shrubs by 60%. The total biomass of the system has increased significantly, and vegetation has grown taller. But because there was plenty of open ground at the site into which plants could expand, these changes did not result in decreases in any group. The research indicates that climate change has already begun to increase plant productivity in the high Arctic.”
For some people, nothing could be worse than good news.
Of course several thousand years ago when the world was hotter, the sahara was wet, green and full of life.
'Bye, baby Bunting...
If the Sahel elders are worried by climate change they should simply pack up their traps and move to Norfolk Island. Yes we in Oz are leading the world again, even if our cricketers are playing like a bunch of old crones. Southern Cross Uni are to lead a project testing the world’s first Personal Carbon Trading program conducted in a ‘closed system’ island environment on Norfolk Island. A snip at A$390,000.
But wait! It's not just about climate change; there's more -
If the descendents of Fletcher Christian and the Bounty mutineers are -
After a year of eating lettuce and mung beans, living in the dark at night and cycling during the day, they'll probably insist on being repatriated back to Pitcairn.
Wasn't Norfolk Island heretofore a destination for the sane?
The fossil record paints an unambiguous picture: the climates swing repeatedly from colder and drier to warmer and wetter and back again. Why should it reverse to warmer and dryer now?
I've been to Norfolk Island and met some of the descendants of the Bounty Mutineers. It is a very small island maybe 5 x 4 miles or so. The roads are pretty good. On the whole island, outside the main town Burnt Pine there is one street light at a crossroads where allegedly there was an accident once. That is why they have a light there now! Burnt Pine has shops, not many, a hotel and some holiday apartments and, believe it or not, a roundabout. They also have a lovely lawn bowls club. The capital, Kingston, is quite a nice olde world place and close by is a golf course right by the sea. This is the island where the worst criminals from the early days of colonisation were sent. There is no escaping from this place. Australia is hundreds of miles to the west, equally New Zealand is hundreds of miles to the South. It is beautiful and tragic all at once. My wife and I spent hours in the small graveyard reading the inscriptions on the grave stones. A 16 year old cabin boy's name on one stone. From Co Mayo. On another was a young man, a sailor who had died. From Co Laois from here in Ireland. The same for English, Scottish and Welsh names. Very sad. Young men who had left their homes for adventure, a job to earn money, or whatever. They left home and vanished. Leaving their families to wonder about the fate that befell them. We also spent hours on the cliffs in various places around the island watching the waves break far below us. No landing places on this island for large ships. Everything had to be brought ashore by lighter from the ships through a gap in the reef. The ruins of the old prison are to be seen as well as the gibbett. Tragic and beautiful.
So what about the 'greening of the Sahel'? It's positively good news.
Oh, but "For years now, the elders explain, they have been worried by climate change." Do you know why? Because they have been taught to. The likes of Michael Mann have sucked huge amounts out of the US taxpayer to export the manufactured consciousness of climate change, introducing methods to implant in the consciousness of tribal leaders the 'reality' of climate change. Funny thing is, the tribal leaders didn't notice it until it was pointed out by eco-loons and prestigious scientists like MM, who must, of course, be right.
See where this $760k went, filling the pockets of Michael Mann and William Easterling et al: "Climate Change Collective Learning and Observatory Network in Ghana".
Look at this method of generating consciousness of 'climate change' where none exists:
http://www.wikiadapt.org/filestore/wikiADAPT/PartRiskMap.pdf
"This method focuses on experienced and perceived problems/hazards/stresses as they affect people’s livelihoods. Participants, grouped by age and gender, are asked to elicit the various problems they face at the community level (free listing), write or draw them on index cards, then rank them, by order of importance, and score their severity or harm to wellbeing and livelihoods. At the end of the activity, the participants evaluate attempted strategies and solutions of all problems listed...The key is to encourage participants to focus on problems and stresses that affect the entire community, not individual worries...
The problems are ranked according to their importance or how worrisome they are for the community...If climate (rainfall, temperature, wind, etc) was not mentioned, the facilitator asks whether climate constitutes any problem/worry...Participants then add the climatic worry in an appropriate position in their ranking."
So, this is manufacturing social problems. Then see the 'mental models' they conjured up:
http://www.wikiadapt.org/filestore/wikiADAPT/Mentalmodels.pdf
"Participants are selected through the chief or opinion leaders of the community...Extension agents can work in small groups or individually, depending on their location. Policy makers may include representatives from the local government....For this exercise, a large sheet of paper, large post-its, and markers are needed. The facilitator positions the “problem” (climatic change) in the middle of the sheet. Participants are asked to identify causes and consequences of climatic changes, the latter for people and the environment, by putting individual ideas on post-its and adding them to the map. Arrows are used to connect causes and consequences to the “problem”."
Pretty much the same methods used under communist regimes.
SFT: I bet what answers they'd have got if they'd done that in the middle of the Little Ice Age.
[ written as he was flying over the Sahara ]
"It is remarkable to think that these treeless desert lands were, half a million years ago, humid tropical forest lands, with now-extinct primates and a rich diversity of plants and animals— a far cry from the impoverished biota that populates the interior of northwestern Africa today.
If the reader is wondering what happened to the rainforest, the unsurprising answer is... global climate change. It is not a new phenomenon: climate change is the rule, not the exception. And climate change was the rule long before humankind came to dominate our earth or to infuse our atmosphere with greenhouse gases. Climate change, extinction, and speciation have been acting in concert for many millenia. Past climate changes in the climate of northern Africa certainly caused local extinction pulses. These have been well documented by paleontologist Scott Wing, who has written of the Koobi Fora flora and fauna— a now vanished humid tropical world in northern Africa."
Bruce M. Beehler, Ph.D.
"Lost Worlds: Adventures In The Tropical Rainforest"
p. 201
Yale University Press
New Haven, 2008
( Dr. Beehler is vice-president of Conservation International, one of the world's leading authorities on Birds Of Paradise and was a co-leader of the 2006 expedition to the Foja Mountains of Papua that resulted in the discovery of a "Lost World" and several new species )
National Geographic? Journal of Arid Environments?
Well-known shills for Big Oil.
Why read the Guardian if you hate it?
I read Ms Bunting's article and the many responses. Most of them very critical (and so am I). And the criticism overall met with approval by other readers.
Which brings me to a meta question: Why do English people buy and read the Guardian if it mostly contains articles which you hate? Some type of masochism? Or is it rather the whipping of Ms Bunting and her comrades in arms which brings you pleasure? Why not buy papers which are sensible?
The other question is of course: How do you as a journalist react before this cannonade? Does not this in any way influence your thinking? That was a question for Ms Bunting.
Gösta Oscarsson
Stockholm
Gosta Oscarson. The Guardian has always been on the political left in the UK. Most of us are not buying it, but if you want to know what the EcoFascists are thinking, apart from destroying what remains of the economy, the Guardian is a good place to start, and their website is free.
Noting you are from Stockholm, could you answer a question please? Until last winter, Stockholm experienced many winters without permanent snow, the Baltic did not fully freeze, and compulsory snow tyres for 08's seemed like a joke. Is this true? Did the warming at the end of the last century, produce significant beneficial effects for 08's, explaining why many more Swedes than Brits accept man made global warming as a fact? Thank you
Madelaine Bunting's time in Mali would be better spent investigating slavery.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7576444.stm
Frankly I think Ms. Bunting is deliberately fabricating her story.
Hunter
Why on earth would any environmentalist fabricate anything?
Surely you are not suggestingf that organisations respected by the IPCC, the UN, world governing bodies would actually fabricate evidence?
Everything stated by Greenpeace and World Wild Fund is true, true true! To deny it you must be an idiot!
Posted by Al Gore's best mate
"Half the models follow a wetter trend, and half a drier trend."
This is the best thing about the wide range of models. They are never wrong.
Gösta Oscarsson wrote
As an Antipodean, and an incredibly right-wing leftwinger, I personally read The Guardian because overall it presses the right buttons. Stuff may be wrong or biased - e.g. climate - but the entire paper matches my outlook.
As a direct contrast I also like the Daily Mail. It appeals to my conservative side and also has good cartoons ( but not as good as Giles )
I also watch The Independent - that more left wing, but it matches my social justice view, so I am prepared to ignore the odd silliness.
Ms Bunting is a privately educated metropolitan arts grad and devout Catholic who likes to view scientific, social and economic issues in simple Manichean terms. Any attempt to explain that if the models are right there is minimal change in temperatures will meet with the same blank lack of interest as a detailed exposition of the factors that led up to the banking crisis.
Golf Charley!
Sorry to say, the Swedish enthusiasm before AGW has more to do with the fact that MSM in Sweden has been very devoted to AGW. However; this year there has been a dramatic drop in how much space the Swedish papers devote to AGW. But regardless of that there is a constant flow of, what I would call, "small news" from NGOs and minor politicians sending the established "message". But nobody cares very much.
To "understand Sweden" you should know that we have 50 % nuclear and 50 % "water power". And on top av that we fell almost 100 million kubic meter of wood a year, which means that entire Swedish cities are heated by that, which is not used for the production of paper och timber. We can thus easily be holier than you, as it does not hurt very much.
Gösta Oscarsson
Gosta Oscarsson
Thank you for explaining the Swedish logic, and particularly the "holier than thou"!
Does Sweden still produce and use Fulan Red (the distinctive red timber preservative), a bi-product of copper mining? It struck me that it would be banned in the UK on the grounds of environmental pollution, though it obviously does the job very well!
Gosta - I think the retreat from blanket coverage of AGW is also evident at the BBC. The other day I looked at their science and environment page and there was no mention of "global warming/climate change/climate disruption". Checking today shows a similar picture:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment/
Obvioiusly this is far from Sahel.But anyhow::
Golf! A civil question needs a civil answer. Yes the Falu red is still in use. No environmental concers as far as I know. As it was first produced in the year 1616 negative effects should show by now. Interestingly enough it was first much used by the upper classes but were later degraded to the common people. Thus the typical little red cottage with white orners. Actually part a crucial part of Swedishness.
In preparing my answer I actually looked up information about the copper mine of Falun. During the 17th century it actually answered for two thirds of world !!! production of copper. This was also the century when Sweden was out of all proportion militarily influential in Northern Europe. An interesting correlation.
not banned yet! Yes we have the same development. But - as I said - there is a constant stream of news where people (and organisations) who actually know very little about AGW continue to send "the correct message". The journalists within MSM who actually were the driving force behind the previous discussion/prpaganda now have a very low profile. They may have discovered the blog world. And got somewhat intimidated.
But no rules without exceptions. In todays "Svenska Dagbladet" (Sweden's second biggest newspaper) there is a lengthy, very positive and very ignorant, review of Merchants of Doubt. But as in the Guardian the comments are to 90 % on "our side".
Gösta
Stockholm
I remember flying over the Sahara on my way to an oil rig location near Hassi Messaoud in March 2004. I remember looking at the desert and seeing lots of water and thinking that something was strange. When I got to the rigsite the guys told me that it had snowed for the first time in 25 years and there had been 6 inches of lying snow. There were pictures up of the crew building snowmen and having snowball fights. They thought it was great fun.
Of course it hasn't snowed there since 2004 because of man made gobal warming....
The benefit of additional CO2 in the atmosphere , never mentioned by warmistas, is the effect of aiding growth of vegetation in marginal dry lands, with less water needed.
So, more CO2, more greening in the Sahel. More greening, more moisture, more clouds:
More clouds ,more rain. A positive feedback cycle I believe
The Tundra observation above by messenger ,shows it is happening in cold deserts too.
The University of Arizona has several field studies on the subject. Other observations have been made in a plantation in the Negev desert.
I find the blog CO2science.org a great site for detailed information of CO2 / plant interaction