Hotter, Drier, Hungrier: How Global Warming Punishes the World’s Poorest

"the trend may be linked to human activity" True. And it may not be. But if you report it that way, you don't have a story.

" ... drought has prompted some herders to plunder the livestock of rival communities or sneak into nature reserves to graze their hungry droves." Some communities lost their ancestral lands to nature reserves -- such as the Tsavo National Parks denied to the Maasai. The Maasai people look from their communities to the national parks traveled by foreign tourists in Land Cruisers. The Maasai herders are fined or jailed if they take their animals into those parks. Why not allow the dispossessed Maasai to graze within the parks? Limit the grazing if necessary to stop desertification. But allow the Maasai to charge fees for the photos taken by the tourists. Make the people of the Tsavo part of the experience. Exploitation? Yes. Paid exploitation. With the money they can buy solar-powered water pumps, they can send their young men and women to technical schools, veterinary colleges, universities, they can buy medicines for their families and animals. The Maasai want to remain in their traditional communities. Money from the foreigners can preserve those communities.

Pastoralists in many parts of the world have had to give up their way of life as their ranges have been compromised by commercial development, war, climate change, corruption, and many other consequences of the collision between the changing new world and their legacy cultures. Kenya will have to choose how much to invest in trying to perpetuate the indigenous cultures of these increasingly marginal regions, while resettling and integrating much of the population into their fast growing urban centers. The story for subsequent generations might be equally tragic as they struggle with poverty, discrimination and lack of opportunities as many internal refugees already experience.

In response to the discussion of population: Per capita carbon emissions, US: 16.4 tons Kenya: 0.3 tons One American, on average, produces the carbon emissions of 50 Kenyans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissi... But that's not all: college-educated Americans (likely the NYT demographic) skew above the US average because of their higher incomes. And if hi-emitting Americans and others in developed countries came down to the average of an EU citizen, global emissions would drop by one third, and Kenya would have a chance. https://www.climate-series.eng.cam.ac.uk/news/westerners-must-reduce-car... As for population and climate: education for women in Africa will be a profound benefit worldwide. Better education and more direct civic engagement in the US would be a benefit too.

from the abstract, which appears to offer a different perspective than the NYT article: "In contrast to 20th century drying, climate models predict that the Horn of Africa will become wetter as global temperatures rise."

Many comments cite education and family planning as necessary components in the fight against poverty in Africa. So, I would like to remind people of the Wiess-Wolf/Kristof piece in the NY times (2015) that says "One in ten girls in Africa misses school for the duration of her period each month. " The issue is the availability/cost of feminine hygiene and how that impacts girl's education. Also there needs to be better cultural competency between populations in Africa who could benefit from family planning - and Western NGO's who offer solutions. For example amongst various Somali groups suggesting to a woman that she can stop having children - is going to be met with a resounding "no" - it is culturally wrong to think in those terms- however, you can present family planning as a tool that allows a woman to decide how much time between the births of her children and that is a much more attractive and culturally acceptable option.

Recent work by Jan Isper (see Esper et al 2012, 2014) shows recent temperatures, while warmer, easily falls within the range of normal temperatures when viewed against a mean established from a 2,000 year timeline. Esper shows Roman and Medieval temperatures were as warm or warmer than recent temperatures. Those periods were not characterized by catastrophic climate change but rather longer growing seasons and increased agricultural production. https://www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb09climatology/files/2012/03/Esper_2014_...

It's amazing to me how quick it is for so many Westerners to dismiss this as another example of a "need" for birth control. It is the quick, elitist, and dismissive go-to answer in so many of the comments. It's not the answer. Mitigating climate change is the answer. Developed countries need to take the lead by turning to renewables as their energy source. We know what causes the climate to change (fossil fuel extraction and use). It is not a secret. In northern Kenya, we are seeing the drought cycle out of whack and the typically reliable rains are increasingly falling short or failing entirely. Having large families is at the core of a pastoralist culture and society. How would you feel if someone told you, "Don't have any more kids." Lack of water is NOT because pastoralists are having large families. It's because of the insatiable appetite for fossil fuels in the capitalist world--only they are the ones dealing directly with the results.

Isn't this place located on the same planet as our place? So, even though you may not care about climate change, you can bet your Hummer that climate change cares about you.

The human population of Kenya went from nine million in 1960 to 50 million today. That is their and the biosphere's real problem.

Irony: The ideology that the NYTs has long championed and defended razes a region to the ground, and the Times blames Global Warming.

The effects of global warming at the edge of the desert can be seen as a foreshadowing of widespread improverishment and human tragedy as climate change progresses in this century and next.

I wish I was more surprised by the lack of empathy in these responses, but I'm not. Blame the victim at your own peril because we inhabit the same planet, folks. Eventually, we will be affected too

When populations have too many children, they inevitably start fighting over the limited resources. We accept refugees from these war-torn countries, only to see them continue to have many children after they have moved here. They do not seem to realize that the entire planet’s resources are limited, and that wars could break out anywhere, even here. The 14% of our population that was born abroad account for 23% of American babies. The below is from a 10/26/16 PEW Trust article titled " Births Outside of Marriage Decline for Immigrant Women: Long-term growth in total U.S. births driven by the foreign born, who account for 23% of all babies”: " In 2014, there were 58.3 births for every 1,000 U.S.-born women of childbearing age, and 84.2 among their foreign-born counterparts. Compared with U.S.-born women, birth rates are higher for foreign-born women from each region of the world. For example, women originally from sub-Saharan Africa have by far the highest annual fertility, with 106.4 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age. The rate for Latin Americans, who account for more than half of births to immigrant mothers in the U.S., is 80.6." The U.N. should explain to all refugees how overpopulation leads to fighting over resources, and how to use "family planning" to limit the number of children they have.

It's disheartening that both this article and a previous NYT piece lack basic research. A vast aquifer discovered in Kenya may be one solution to the crisis. The limited samples that have been tested have been too highly salinated, but (from Reuters): '"The U.N.'s scientific and cultural agency, UNESCO, which backed the initial satellite imaging that led to the discovery of the water, is seeking funds for a national groundwater mapping program. "What we did is only a small part in Turkana and the government would like to expand the mapping for the whole country," said Abou Amani UNESCO's regional hydrologist."' Complete coverage please.

Oh, the irony! These people who are paying the price for climate change didn't even experience benefits of the industrialization that cause it. No two-car garages here. We live on one planet. Will we stop destroying it?

OK -- in the 1930's in the US we had the dust bowl. It was a period of very high temps and drought. Some areas had a drought that lasted 8 years. And the nasty WEATHER conditions were exacerbated by poor agricultural practices. And yet. From 1934 (hottest year on record at that point) the avg US temp declined 1.7 degrees F by 1980 and the average precipitation increased by 10%. Guess what --- weather is cyclical --- and the impact of variations in regional weather (or climate) are exacerbated (or ameliorated) by local conditions -- agriculture practices, population, etc. Kenya's population has grown from 2.9 million to 37 million (and counting) since the 1920's. Do you think that might have an impact on how a drought affects them? Do they use the best agricultural practices? Automatically blaming any weather event on global warming is ridiculous. Local weather conditions can vary dramatically from year to year and decade to decade -- and longer.

I can’t pretend to know the exact impact that global warming is having on Africa. But for nearly 40 years now, climate scientists have urged action on global warming. And yet, the United States has continued to support the fossil fuels industry rather than moving to alternatives fuels. Global warming is like a bathtub that is overflowing and we continue wiping up the floor but we must turn off the water spigot. The ideas in many of the comments come from a sense of urgency that most humans feel to find solutions and we should do what we can. This is a terrible tragedy. But we must mitigate now. Adding more CO2 daily to the atmosphere will exaggerate these weather patterns to new extremes.

Concurrent to this is that Many nations in Africa have the highest fertility rates in the world, with some countries averaging 6 births per woman. Combined with the inability to produce enough food due to global warming...it is clear that life will not be sustainable. Family Planning must be part of the solution as well as a global effort to combat global warming.

THE POOREST NATIONS Face an existential battle with climate change. Add to that the ignoramus Trump's denial of scientific evidence, and it looks like the US has turned its back on millions who are dying of hunger and thirst. The next wars will not be fought for oil or territory, but rather for water. People can live for years on the brink of starvation; but only survive for a number of days without water. Where there is widespread, severe, prolonged drought, people will be faced with flight toward more water or death. Hence, the thousands of refugees arriving in Europe from Africa will increase to a torrent of millions. Such an onslaught will tip the ethnic balance of nations where the birthrate is extremely low, as in much of Western Europe and in the former Communist bloc as well. Likewise in places like Japan and China where the birthrates are extremely low. By contrast, people who come from mostly Muslim countries have the highest birthrates in the world. The handwriting is on the wall.

Interesting. According to Berkeley earth, Kenya, a country slightly smaller than Texas, had 4 weather temp stations before 1900. Sporadically gathering data. Today they have 21. Many of these stations only report intermittently and have huge gaps in their reporting record. Does anyone know if all the temp stations used the same methods for gathering temp data? Doubt it. Were they put in place to monitor Kenya's avg temp? No. Were sites selected randomly? No. Is the temp record for Kenya, such as it is, based on rigorous data collection. No. It may be getting hotter in Kenya, or it may not be. We have no idea because the temperature record is garbage. It's based on estimates and the use of a handful of weather stations (contrast Kenya with the US which today has over 9000 temp stations and had over 1000 at the turn of the century. While the US has issues with it's weather stations over time -- it has more than ample coverage to attempt to measure and some semblance of a common method. But even for the US you couldn't say that temp data gathered since 1895 across the US are based on stations that were randomly selected and always used common methods. Sorry for the problems in Kenya -- but we have no idea if it's gotten hotter there over the last almost 140 years. As for droughts? Really? Do we really think we have enough accurate data to suggest that the recent droughts are an anomaly caused by CC (or is it global warming, or is it ACGW?)

No snark...it seems like walking around with five or ten pounds of beads around your neck in blazing heat would be uncomfortable and would cause one to sweat more. Just saying.

This situation never get any better if the population keeps growing - in fact this will become far worse and will escalate into war. Perhaps if all the aid organizations active in this region concentrated their efforts more on basic education along with birth control instead of handing out sacks of food, there might be a chance to develop the region along more self-sustaining lines.

The West must prepare for endless millions of environmental refugees flowing out of their continents, in particularly Europe. This is just a mere trickle right now. In the future it will become an unstoppable tidal wave or deluge.

We read about this gathering disaster when it was about the future. Now it is about the present. Who will be left to read or write about it when it has become the past? If you're wondering what to do with your free time, or your retirement time, or your life, I can't think of a better cause that doing all you can to advocate for sound action to protect our planet and it's people.

For over 50 years I've been hearing/reading about Africans suffering drought, famine, disease, or violence. All this time "we" have been helping them, but what has "our" help resulted in? Why do we keep helping Africans in ways that simply perpetuate their need for more and more help? If developed nations have been helping these people all along, why haven't we helped them emerge from the Stone Age? Simply giving water, food and medicine to people who continue in an unsustainable lifestyle, is pointless. Listen to Gideon Galu, or James Oduor -- listen to those who have some plan other than just continuing to enable people to live in a way that is not only unsustainable but destroys the environment (eg, cutting down the few remaining trees....to make charcoal!!)

This is sad to observe. It is only a matter of time before these people migrate to the more urban or green areas of Kenya to make a living. I hope that there are opportunities for them in these other regions of Kenya. I hope that their problems can be solved in their own countries and that there will not be follow-up articles advocating for the migration of these people to Europe or the US, just because we are prosperous and have our natural populations under control, and even at below 0 growth rates. With western leaders like Angela Merkel still in office, and after she has finally after 5+ months formed a coalition government with the liberal SPD, you can never know.

From Wikipedia: "Kenya had a population of approximately 48 million people in January 2017.[2] Kenya has a young population, with 73% of residents aged below 30 years because of rapid population growth;[125][126] from 2.9 million to 40 million inhabitants over the last century." Climate change sure does not help, but those people mostly bring this misery on themselves by their reckless reproductive behaviour. We need to restrict aid to those who adhere to a strict regimen of population control.

I wonder at what point it might make sense to assist these people with moving to another area altogether, one in which they can sustain themselves more easily?

All the aforementioned problems will worsen as the planet warms up. Smaller family size would help for sure. The planet is stressed and cannot take much more. There are too many people chasing scarce resources.

The local expert, Gideon Galu, is correct and is quoted saying" "When Gideon Galu, a Kenyan meteorologist with the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, or FewsNet, looks at 30 years of weather data, he doesn’t see doom for his country’s herders and farmers. He sees a need to radically, urgently adapt to the new normal: grow fodder for the lean times, build reservoirs to store water, switch to crops that do well in Kenya’s soil, and not just maize, the staple." The problem is not climate change, but climate period. This region of Kenya has always been dry and subject to droughts and mega-droughts -- what they lack is the development and infrastructure to deal with it. The simple drilling of deep modern water wells and installation of hand-pumps can save entire villages from the ravages of poor rains. My wife and I oversaw a project that installed 500 such wells in the dry, under-served regions of the Dominican Republic. Lack of enlightened governance and utter waste of foreign aid is the true cause of these peoples misery.

African women have an average of 4.5 children and the United Nations predicts that Africa will have over 2.5 billion people by 2050. The situation in Africa will not improve without birth control.

How desperately sad to see these reed thin people, to know that the weak, the elderly and young children have to walk seven miles to get water. Water in heavy containers. How incredibly fortunate we are! I suppose it is the job of the women to care for the dwindling herds as well as fetch the water and care for the children. I wonder what the men do. To newrein who comments that birth control is needed, yes that would probably help but the number of children in the region is probably not high. Women that malnourished generally stop menstruating.

Thanks NYT for covering the drought in East Africa. Its far more important than tweets from the president.

Just incredible reporting. How ironic that mass starvation could be occurring in the very place where modern humans first evolved and later spread across the entire planet. In the coming decades, droughts will be more frequent and more severe, and it is the responsibility of the rich countries to aid those populations that will suffer.

About the photo: why the head crop? Would it have been so difficult to show the full facial humanity there? Or, for that matter, to identify the individuals by name? Why reduce them to generic examples of global inequality?

Global warming, especially for the poor, is in crisis mode now, however denied by the likes of Trumpist willful deniers of Climate Change. Hope our "ugly American" in-chief is the exception to the rule, as evidence is so obvious to everybody else, trying to find ways to minimize it's harm (increase in frequency and severity of natural forces, i.e. fires, droughts, flooding). Wish we apply the famous saying "From those with talent and the means, to those in need, is defined as justice, not just compassion". Are we there yet? Doubtful, right?

The areas of the modern American southwest were once arid, barren and poor. What made them prosperous? Why were Americans able to surmount these climatological challenges? What's the difference between western philosophy and African tribalism? And how does philosophy drive history and culture? The clues are all around us.

In an unrelated article last week, it was mentioned that the Sahara was covered with grass and trees 7,300 years ago, but morphed into a desert , and long before mankind began burning oil and coal. The world's climate has been changing since time began and will continue to do so, i suspect, with or without us. To illustrate the plight of these poor folks to beat the climate change drum, is a bit of a stretch, I think.

There is nothing new about drought in the horn of Africa. This has been a semi desert area for centuries.

Birth control is needed in ALL nations. However thanks to YOUR government, birth control is harder and harder to get. Do what will YOU do about this? And Edward Abbey correctly described Capitalism when he wrote: "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell."

Ever since the first time I heard 60 years ago to clean my plate because children were starving in Africa, it's always in the context of basket case. What's new? Africa and Job seem to have a lot in common, hopefully their ends will be similar as well.

The problems of these arid areas of the globe are not limited to exacerbation solely by global warming. There are on going (for decades) tribal and regional wars. There are wild animals, poaching, criminals, lack of jobs, education, health care, government indifference or complicit actions in making matters worse and of course there is a growing population and less and less resources. We can't solve all the problems of these peoples. And we can't sit idly by and wring our hands either. One of the problems of climate change is the continual deforestation of many areas of the globe, mainly the rain forests. The rain forests are sometimes called the "lungs of the earth." Throughout South America and across Africa rainforests are greatly endangered. Even in the United States and Canada formerly pristine, ancient old growth forests are in danger. There are other climate and land/forest/lake/stream/ocean changes that are also having broad ranging effects, mostly negative. Collectively, the damages to the Earth's resources are having far reaching effects. In my view we must place greater concentration on controlling population growth. The current population explosion if it continues at the current pace well see the Earth unable to sustain peoples everywhere. If we can't feed and house people now where will we be in 100 years? The wars over natural resources will become even bloodier. And the Earth ever warmer and dryer.

These issues are quite complex and while global warming is a major contributor to the situation in the Sahel, so is overfarming, overpopulation, and people trying to live as if the world had not moved far beyond them. We laud the preservation of faraway indigenous cultures rooted in a past that disappeared while its heirs live on, reluctant to acknowledge the obvious, but if the West announced it was going to replace cars with horses and carriages, or the Sioux announced they were going to return to nomadic buffalo hunting, we would shake our heads in disbelief. As Steve, below, has pointed out, there are strategies for moderating the impact of climate change in drylands. But there are no strategies for moderating the fact that history marches on, and those who cannot march with it, and have no other option than living as if were the 13th rather than the 21st century, will be particularly vulnerable.

I hope someone is talking about the need to control population in these places (as well as everywhere else since population is a major driver of climate change, conflict, etc.).

Thank you for reporting on how global warming impacts those living in a fragile alliance with the earth in drylands. The people across the African Sahel can be a great resource in building resilience to climate if we would work in partnership with them. The article pointed out charcoal production is decimating the existing trees. However, there are innovative strategies to allow trees to regrow - it's known as farmer managed natural regeneration FMNR - and it has been successful in drylands around the world: http://fmnrhub.com.au There are a host of techniques to conserve water through building small reservoirs and slowing runoff from emaciated farmland. These are very effective in helping hold water from larger storms instead of losing it. Global warming in the Sahel causes larger rainfall events over shorter periods of time. This is manageable if we can work in partnership with the Turkana and the other peoples. It does not take massive aid programs. Instead, these traditional methods of building resilience in the land with pastoralists and farmers can provide a means to reduce the impact of global warming and enhance the life and livelihoods of those who make the drylands their home while helping the rest of us as well.

Birth control is what is needed in these nations.

gee, maybe they can vote for trump ? he cares

Great reporting on an overlooked issue. Thank you.

For many years I have supported families in eastern Kenya by means of an aid organization that lets you "adopt" a child in a project. The letters my child and her family write now center on one thing only: the rains. Have they come? Are they sufficient? Will there be a harvest? One day, a friend of the family wrote, "The river has dried up. We are terrified." I send the family extra money. But what about everyone else?

The once more verdant Sahara has been gradually expanding for the entire Holocene. At this time it cannot be determined to what extent, if any, this natural process is influenced by antrhopogneic effects on climate. Most of the problems in marginal areas are clearly the result rapacious agriclutural practices by the locals.