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.