Our Grandparents use to remember with nostalgia how in the past 50 years they usually had a high yield harvest yearly-round in the farms and surprisingly with total abstinence from using fertilizers and other modern additives. The bushes are full of trees of all sorts, vegetative forests with every variety of colorful and nutritious leaves; guavas, mangoes, paw paw, dates, to name a few. A farmer was almost always sure to have a sufficient harvest for the family with little manure from his domestic animal dungeons. They always harvest enough to feed themselves and their families, with even more for the neighbourhood.
Surprisingly today, with all the powerful tools for mechanical farming, with all the ‘Almighty’ fertilizer, with all the agricultural institutions, with all the army of PhDs in academia, we harvest less and less. For the past two decades our weather have been constantly fluctuating with no certainty of what to crop this year or next. For instance, a farmer would crop rice this year in a clay land and experience drought, so exactly the next year when he decided to switch to grains ( millet or sorghum) which would perfectly suit the dry land, unexpectedly there would be a massive flood.
As I live in Jigawa State, I had first hand experience of this kind of scenario, our farmers are constantly switching between sesame (‘ ridi’), groundnut, millet, and even rice. Places that were once dry land for sorghum and groundnut are now perfectly turn in to rice farming lands. In case you are doubting, come to areas around Sara town in Gwaram Local Govt, Jigawa state.
Jigawa state was originally name ‘Jigawa’ because of the large number of dry land available mostly for farming crops that require less amount of water. How are these vast areas becoming a mix up, and even some totally submerged below water ?, How did we arrive arrived at this juncture ?, Why did we experience more floods and erosion disasters yearly?
Some of those answers are there plainly written on the wall as an effect of climate change caused by man made activities that we failed to take any heed or measures. Some of those effects are as a result of our ignorance to look in to our environments the way we took care of our stomach. These effect are as result of continues perpetuation of natural resources for satisfaction of our insatiable Human greed.
Over the past decade, scientists and the media have being constantly alerting the populace on the danger that change in the global temperature poses to the living condition we are currently enjoying. Infact some of those warnings were already in effect on many parts of the globe. Researches have shown how the continues depletion of ozone layer by emission from fossil fuel by our engines and industries is posing a great danger to the protection we once enjoyed by the Sun. The direct ultraviolet radiation that passes from the heating Sun is no more protected by the ozone layer which makes it to descend directly on to our atmosphere. This lead to the increase rise of earth temperature to few fraction of degrees. Currently the earth temperature have reached almost 2°c ( degree centigrade), with future expectation to reach 3°c.
Rise in earth temperature is what lead to constant melting of polar ice in the global North around Greenland. If you don’t know, these ices, served as a pillar to the seas,habitation of billion of aquatic lives, and source of living for the humans. If that ice continue to melt it would continue to kill those animals and this would shift the ecological balance to the negative. Not only that, but mass migration of those living around the poles would lead to overcrowding to other part of the world probably Europe or Africa.
Most of the current danger of global warming was caused by the developed Nations in the global North especially Europe who for over 200 years possessed engines that constantly polluted the air with carbon. Top among those countries include US, UK, Germany, Russia, and now China. But ironically the underdeveloped countries situated in the global South are at the receiving end of the punishment, where they are constantly been threatened by floods, famine, earthquake, storms, desertification, erosions, and drought.The global South countries that are at constant risk of global warming were Pakistan, India,Indonesia, South Americans, West and Sub Saharan Africa.
One of the effect of global warming that hardly people pay attention to are as follows;
1) When ever any part of the world experience a flood, famine, or earthquake, that part automatically became uninhabitable, and most of its inhabitants tend to migrate to safer places and greener pastures especially cities. This would lead to overcrowding of urban areas, creation of more slums, increase crime rate, less job opportunities, and reduction in the available land for farming and farmers themselves. These are the real causes of food insecurity we see daily, the real causes of the xenophobic attacks we heard daily, these are the real causes of the immigration problem we experience daily.
2) Overgrazing of the land without proper ways of replenishing and the constant encroachment of those specific forests and environment reserved for nomadic livestock in the Northern Nigeria have forced the Nomadic Fulani to travel far to Southern Nigeria in search of pasture, this would automatically causes some altercation regarding rights, privacy, and intrusion, which causes the constant farmer- herders conflict that is escalating and metamorphising in to something else.
3) Many of those Fulani were now barren of their millennia old source of livelihood ( livestock), or were forced to abandoned the practice because of scarcity of grazing field through encroachment by over expanding Government or Private projects ( roads, railways, colleges, companies, hydroelectric dams). More worse they were not able to attend schools or learn any mordern skills, and mostly live deep in the forest, so Government social amenities were scarce or totally absent. What do you expect from this scenario; aged old frustration that accumulate over the years of negligence, ignorance, poverty, despair and envy. So those kind of young idle mind can become a devil workshop if care is not taken. Its easy to convince them through propaganda to carry weapons which we now see as a form of banditry,arm robbery, kidnappings, and terrorism.
4) We have being witnessing the constant conversion of places that were once ecological habitat reserved for forestation and farming variety of food crops that our lives depend upon. These places are now becoming Universities, companies, barracks,airports, hotels,rails tracks. These activities lead to less land for farming despite the exponential growth in the world population, hence the less harvest. This is the cause of hunger. Hunger lead to conflict, wars, illness, and debasement of human capital development.
The effect was not only cause by the developed Nations, we too have our share of the problem. I’m sure for everyone raised in the rural area is aware of the constant deforestation by our own people in order to gather burning sticks, and the worrying part is we cut the trees without planting others on their place. According to research, we need to plant 10 trees in place of each 1 we cut down. But the sad story here is that we are not even practicing 1 for 1 (i.e cut down 1 tree and plant 1 tree).
The sub Saharan Africa is constantly under threat of desert encroachment which would only be averted through planting more trees especially along our roads and desert belt. People living around Jigawa State are aware of the continues desertification yearly by meters in to previously non desert environment. This definitely have a human and economic cost.
Over the past 5 decades, the world has continually witness the gradual extinction and disappearance of many species of plants and animals from the earth surface whose research shows they enormously contributes to the stability and maintenance of ecological equilibrium. For instance, vultures were once abundant over the skies which contributes to the degradation of carcasses that pollute the air, but today rarely you can spot the vultures.
Hyenas, tigers, elephants, kangaroos, giraffes, swans, and thousands of other sauna and floras in both aquatic and terrestrial forms were no where to be found. Some of those missing animal species have migrated to other part of the globe with favourable weather while many were totally wiped out through perpetual game hunting, industrial and chemical poisoning.
Did we really know the catastrophic effect of the disappearance of these species from our planets?
Its not surprising that one day humans too may start migrating to more favourable weather conditions if ravaged by negative climatic effects.
Some of the popularly known places affected daily by the effect of climate change include ; Jakarta, one of the world densely populated cities in Indonesia with flood destroying homes and lives every year. Hurricane Catrina in the US, a storm and powerful wind that destroyed houses, bridges, and humans. Makoko Slum in Lagos Nigeria, a densely populated area above water, mostly inhabited by immigrants searching for job opportunities from the deserted rural part of the country. Auyo in Hadejia Jigawa State, an area stretching many local Governments that are yearly affected by floods and erosion causing devastating destruction and loss of human lives. Greenland is the part of the globe in the far north pole around Antarctica, those places are mostly covered with ices, but today these ices are melting rapidly causing migration of the people around those part.
The climate change effect is putting the world in to a dilemma situation with rising sea level on the one hand with extreme drought and desertification on the other hand.
Some archeological exploration have shown that the mostly desert middle Eastern world of today were once flourished with vegetation and abundant of water, lives, and different aquatic and terrestrial species. Its only time that would tell whether we are retracing back to that same period conditions.
SOLUTION
Finally, its advisable for the developed Nations to continue diversifying their source of energy through electric vehicles, solar stations, biodegradable energy, and hydroelectric power source so as to abandon the toxic fossil fuel that pollute the atmosphere with excess greenhouse emission gases ( methane, and carbon monoxide).
Also the global South including Asian, Africans, and Middle Eastern countries should embraces the habit of conserving our God- given resources through planting more trees, regulation of deforestation, and creating robust public awareness on the imperative importance of the Ecological Conservation.
Saifullahi Attahir
[email protected]
1st/ October/2023.
The post Impact Of Climate Change Would Affect Every Where, Are We More At Risk? -By Saifullahi Attahir first appeared on Opinion Nigeria.
