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tzechuk
Joined: 20 Dec 2004
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 Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:25 am Post subject: Climate change behind Darfur killing: UN's Ban |
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UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that the slaughter in Darfur was triggered by global climate change and that more such conflicts may be on the horizon, in an article published Saturday.
"The Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change," Ban said in a Washington Post opinion column.
UN statistics showed that rainfall declined some 40 percent over the past two decades, he said, as a rise in Indian Ocean temperatures disrupted monsoons.
"This suggests that the drying of sub-Saharan Africa derives, to some degree, from man-made global warming," the South Korean diplomat wrote.
"It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought," Ban said in the Washington daily.
When Darfur's land was rich, he said, black farmers welcomed Arab herders and shared their water, he said.
With the drought, however, farmers fenced in their land to prevent overgrazing.
"For the first time in memory, there was no longer enough food and water for all. Fighting broke out," he said.
A UN peacekeeping force may stop the fighting, he said, and more than two million people may return to rebuilt homes in safe villages.
"But what to do about the essential dilemma: the fact that there's no longer enough good land to go around?"
"Any real solution to Darfur's troubles involves sustained economic development," perhaps using new technologies, genetically modified grains or irrigation, while bettering health, education and sanitation, he said.
Sudan is not the only country with such problems, Ban said, and pointed to Somalia, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso as African countries with "food and water insecurity."
Khartoum agreed this week to accept 23,000 UN and African Union peacekeepers after four years of fighting, which has killed at least 200,000 people. |
Is it me, or is it the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard?! |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 5:43 am Post subject: Re: Climate change behind Darfur killing: UN's Ban |
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| tzechuk wrote: |
Is it me, or is it the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard?! |
What's ridiculous about it? I read an article not so long ago that argued that this war will probably go down in history as the first caused by climate change. There are other factors at play of course, but there is now a serious drought and a new shortage of fertile land and people are fighting over scarce resources. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 5:50 am Post subject: |
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Another relevant article
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Something fundamental has changed in this part of Africa, and it happened within a generation. From a state of sectarian innocence in which the dividing line between Arab and African was meaningless, something made people pick sides, and hardened their new sense of identity into ethnic hatred, all in the past two decades. What changed, the evidence suggests, was the climate.
The current conflict began in 2003. It was triggered when Darfurians launched a revolt against the central government, which fought back by unleashing the Janjaweed. But the real roots of the disaster stretch back to the mid-1980s when a ferocious drought and famine transformed Sudan and the whole Horn of Africa. It killed more than a million people and laid waste livestock herds. Whether they maintained their way of life or tried to take up settled cultivation, the pastoralists of Darfur clashed repeatedly with its farmers. A string of conflicts broke out as both sides armed themselves, and those conflicts created the template for today's disaster.
Alex de Waal, a researcher and writer on Darfur, tells the story of meeting a nomadic leader, Sheikh Hilal Musa, in 1985, at the height of the drought. The desert was visibly advancing as the Saharan winds blew sand into the more fertile hills where the sheikh's clan, the Jalul, were grazing their camels. He tried hard to keep up appearances but it was clear his world was falling apart. Many Jalul who had lost their camels and goats tried their hands at farming, but as latecomers with no ancestral land rights, they had to make do with rocky, semi-barren terrain, and could only look with envy towards the rich alluvial soil belonging to the long-established African tribe, an offshoot of the Fur people. Darfur means literally the Land of the Fur. |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 7:21 am Post subject: |
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Well, it's kind of a stretch in logic to say it's THE CAUSE...but look at it from a distance:
1) There is a biome with two populations of one kind of species.
2) The weather has a deterious affect on the biome and resources and food for the species becomes scarce.
3) Competition over remaining resources and food becomes fierce.
That is the competetive flow of nature: Like it or not, there is a ring of truth to it (that is, assuming GW was the cause of the lack of monsoons). |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 8:54 am Post subject: Re: Climate change behind Darfur killing: UN's Ban |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| tzechuk wrote: |
Is it me, or is it the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard?! |
What's ridiculous about it? |
1) "climate change" (or global warming, depending on the temp of the day) is not as Ban is suggesting it is. It is a fad. In ten years we will laugh at those who fussed about it.
2) Assuming "climate change" (or global warming, depending on the temp of the day) to be true, there is no evidence that it has directly affected rain in this part of Africa. That is just a fools assumption. A huge leap.
3) Assuming "climate change" to be true, and that it cause the problems in this area of Africa, there is FULLY ZERO evidence that this is what is motivating the regime in Sudan to kill the people there.
4) If 1,2,3,4 were true, and the targeted killing of a group of people is a natural response of "climate change" then why is it only happening in Sudan?
Self-hating white leftists will absolve non-whites of any crime, for the most silly of reasons. If it were Jews or American/British Caucasians doing the killing, you can your life that leftists would be screaming against any attempt to pass the blame to "climate change".
The only people to blame for murder are 1) those who pulled the trigger. and 2) those who commanded the loyal army to pull the trigger.
I'm disgusted. bb, you are Disgusting.
This genocide is about oil. Full stop. |
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Troll_Bait
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: [T]eaching experience doesn't matter much. -Lee Young-chan (pictured)
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| Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| "climate change" (or global warming, depending on the temp of the day) is not as Ban is suggesting it is. It is a fad. In ten years we will laugh at those who fussed about it. |
Maybe. Or maybe, in ten years, we'll be agonizing over the fact that we didn't take decisive action sooner. Do you have a PhD in a climatology-related field? Didn't think so.
P.S. Big_Bird, I think your avatar is causing side-scrolling by being too wide. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Troll_Bait wrote: |
Maybe. Or maybe, in ten years, we'll be agonizing over the fact that we didn't take decisive action sooner. Do you have a PhD in a climatology-related field? Didn't think so.
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Do you? Didn't think so.
Do you think that all climate PhD's agree with the same thesis as do the flunky European sociologists and bureaucrats? There is a wide variety of debate. I am not going to turn this isn't a "global warming" debate, but you can find for yourself. |
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Troll_Bait
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: [T]eaching experience doesn't matter much. -Lee Young-chan (pictured)
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| Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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| BJWD wrote: |
| Troll_Bait wrote: |
Maybe. Or maybe, in ten years, we'll be agonizing over the fact that we didn't take decisive action sooner. Do you have a PhD in a climatology-related field? Didn't think so.
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Do you? |
No, I don't, but I am not the one making predictions with certainty, am I? |
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jhaelin
Joined: 30 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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although resources and land scarcity must be a contributing factor to the tension, how about recognizing the most common cause of conflct in our world today...oil.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/IE25Cb04.html
the whole issue especially as it plays out in the media and through international organizations (i.e. u.n.) has been disguised for the benefit of the two big instigators/supporters of the crisis (u.s. and china), who happen to be two of the largest consumers of oil. |
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tzechuk
Joined: 20 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 7:01 pm Post subject: |
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When you have run out all reasons, blame it on the weather.
- an old English saying (originated from the UK or perhaps a translation of sort) |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 7:36 pm Post subject: |
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| the whole issue especially as it plays out in the media and through international organizations (i.e. u.n.) has been disguised for the benefit of the two big instigators/supporters of the crisis (u.s. and china), who happen to be two of the largest consumers of oil. |
The US gets a small fraction of its oil from The Sudan. China is, FAR and away, the biggest guilty party in allowing this war to continue.
But give it time, eventually they'll start to attack refineries and china will, perhaps, feel the need for intervention.
stupid china. |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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| Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 7:49 pm Post subject: |
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I think it is rather obvious that we can't say the the Muslim Arab population is in the process of cleansing the Darfur region and eventually all of the Sudan.
So blaming the man made industrial global climate change is definitely the politically correct thing to say. |
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cosmo
Joined: 09 Nov 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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| cbclark4 wrote: |
I think it is rather obvious that we can't say the the Muslim Arab population is in the process of cleansing the Darfur region and eventually all of the Sudan.
So blaming the man made industrial global climate change is definitely the politically correct thing to say. |
Seriously, do you think anyone needs your narrow minded help? |
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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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| Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:18 pm Post subject: Re: Climate change behind Darfur killing: UN's Ban |
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| BJWD wrote: |
| Self-hating white leftists will absolve non-whites of any crime, for the most silly of reasons. |
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| I'm disgusted. bb, you are Disgusting. |
I agree. I'm disgusted. |
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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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| Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:21 pm Post subject: |
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| BJWD wrote: |
| Troll_Bait wrote: |
Maybe. Or maybe, in ten years, we'll be agonizing over the fact that we didn't take decisive action sooner. Do you have a PhD in a climatology-related field? Didn't think so.
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Do you? Didn't think so.
Do you think that all climate PhD's agree with the same thesis as do the flunky European sociologists and bureaucrats? There is a wide variety of debate. I am not going to turn this isn't a "global warming" debate, but you can find for yourself. |
Wide variety? Prove this. Just once I would like to see the research supposedly going on.
Last count was done in 2004 or so. IT found 900+ research papers on climate change that presented data that supported a human influence vs. 0 against a human influence.
You think that's changed much? I don't. I search the literature regularly. There is almost nothing on the "anti" side out there.
Quit lying, son. Lying is bad. IF you've got research to share, feel free to do so. Otherwise, you're just another liar. |
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