A recent article in the BBC blatantly stated that climate change is a cause of the conflict in Africa. In fact, the title of the article is CLIMATE CHANGE IS "A MAJOR CAUSE OF CONFLICT" IN AFRICA And it gets better!Right under a pitiful picture of an old woman with tears in her eyes, was the subheading: Climate has been cited as a factor behind civil war in Sudan. As my eyes scanned through it all I could hear in the back of my head was professor Bhasin's voice going over and over again, emphasizing "correlation is not causation"
It is disheartening to see a misrepresentation of the truth in a world wide news channel. I can think of quite a number of cases that would discredit climate change as a cause of conflict in Africa. Kenya, which boarders Sudan to the south has seen some fair share of conflict. North Eastern province is the driest region of the country. The Rift Valley is one of the most fertile regions. The Rift Valley has experienced some of the worst tribal clashes leading to civil strife.The North East, according to BBC should be experiencing conflict but it has seen little to no civil strife.
Northern Uganda has experienced one of the longest running wars in Africa. Climate has nothing to do with it. South Africa, one of Africa's most developed, experienced a wave of anti-immigrant violence.It had nothing to do with climate. Zimbabwe has been experiencing post election strife. I don't know about you but I would say the causal arrow in this case is not pointing in the same direction across all the countries that are subject to this study.
Food scarcity is a valid argument because the reason most wars occur is over struggle for resources. But, the poor have always had a food shortage even in times when the economy was blossoming and the rain was abundant. Much like the argument made in the study that showed in countries where wine consumption was high, divorce rates were low. It is not wine consumption that causes low divorce rates but these two factors are correlated. The real reason behind the low divorce rates is Catholicism- a religion that prohibits divorce but doesn't have any restrictions concerning wine consumption. Similarly it is not climate change that causes civil strife in Africa. Climate change, especially low rainfall, leads to low crop production and low agricultural output. This in turn leads to high food prices that the poor population cannot afford. This in turn leads to other things like a desire for wealth, a desire for land resources where they can grow crops to sustain themselves and the cycle continues to grow.
The problem of civil strife in Africa is multifaceted but I do not believe that climate change is a major contributor. The one factor that contributed the most to the civil strife in Africa is colonialism and interference by foreign powers. Rwanda, Cote D'Ivoire, Sierra Leone and Somalia are good examples of countries who's wars have been fueled and even supported by foreign powers such as France, UK and even the United States.But these are the facts I will never read about in the news. What a great watchdog we have!
Africa is a continent of a small pocket of tribes that were economically dependent on themselves. You will have to understand the root of Africa before you understand the wars and poverty that has continually been experienced since colonization. Resources Africans take for granted has been a curse....westerners see wealth in it and thus African factions often displace or fight wars so they can control those resources and sell to the west and get rich quick. Africans do not value gold, diamond or any other natural resource, they value their crops, livestock and things that affect their day to day life. Westerners tend to look down on them for that reason because they value material things in the west and they see Africans as poor because they do not understand that Africans naturally do not care about material things that tend to make wealth in the west. The climate change claim is the most bogus I ever heard, to blame Africa for climate change is the most outrageous findings ever....it's not as if Africans build nuclear weapons, tanks, bombs or weapons of mass destruction to fight wars anyways.
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