Scientist have been warning us for over a decade of the human disasters to be brought about in whole or part by climate change. We are seeing this predictions become reality in the news headlines each day. The famine overtaking Somalia in the Horn of Africa is a tragic example. The country is historically arid, but it has not seen any rain in five failed rainy seasons and likely a sixth. The drought makes it impossible to grow crops or raise livestock, Consequently, the vulnerable are already starving to death. The seemingly endless civil war makes some areas inaccessible to aid agencies trying to help the starving.
Unless something is done on a huge scale, Somalia will succumb to a famine that will rival the one that occurred in 1992 in which an estimated 220,000 to 300,000 people died. The disaster was primarily caused by the civil war, and when the UN disaster relief efforts failed, the United States was called upon to send its troops to protect aid workers and restore order. That mission effectively ended in the infamous "Blackhawk Down" incident in which city residents killed US soldiers after two UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters were shot down in Mogadishu, and dragged their bodies through the streets. The ensuing urban battle cost eighteen American lives and 73 wounded.
This current prolonged drought has already killed 9 million animals. Seven hundred Somali children, not even alive when the Blackhawk went down in Mogudishu, have died from starvation. In Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, 36 million people are struggling against malnutrition that affects nursing women and small children the most. Somalis name their frequent droughts. A sixty year old man walking seven hundred miles to find relief with his two small sons suggested to AP: White Bone. He has seen a lot of death in his exhausting journey. People say this is the worst drought they have ever witnessed, astonishing proud pastoralists that have coped with generations of drought. As climate scientists correctly understood global warming has altered planetary climate patterns to such an extent that some regions are flooded with torrential rains while others bake bone dry in unrelenting sun. The effects of global warming are made even more terrible by war in Europe and religious fanaticism in Africa. A rare famine declaration could be made as early as this month, the first significant one anywhere since Somalia's last one a decade ago that killed an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 humans.