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Criminal to ignore

“THE biggest problem we have right now is some nutcases in our country who don’t believe in global warming. I think that they are going to change their position because the evidence of the ravages of global warming is […] already there." (Former president Jimmy Carter, speaking in August 2014)

South Africa has those nutcases too, people with comfortable lives, buffered from the impact of climate change by the ‘fixes’ they don’t even realise they rely on: aircon in the car, now pretty much a standard feature; aircon in the office and even in the home, I note as I walk around my very middle-middle-class suburb. If our crops fail, they may grumble about imported food prices, but they won’t do without.

A recent break in water supply in Gauteng showed how well-heeled South Africans cope without tap water: they head to the shops and buy it by the ten-litre bottle, even using so-called spring water to wash with.
The well-off here and in the global north can buy their way out of trouble now, and for some time to come.

Their money purchases temporary solutions which enable them to close their eyes to gritty realities; they can choose not to ‘believe’ in climate change because their noses aren’t being rubbed in it (it’s not a matter of belief, of course, any more than something like gravity is).

But those who are really up against it – the farmers – don’t have that luxury. A couple of months back, I wrote about the farming delegate at a Pretoria conference who asked: when we have to move our farming activities from their traditional areas, fleeing heat and erratic rainfall to regions that don’t have the infrastructure (transport and silos, for example), was government ready to meet the need?

I was impressed by how matter-of-fact he was: there was no question about if, it was just when.

I’ve recently met with a similar certainty from farmers across the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) region. You simply have to farm under tunnels and shade cloth if you’re going to get a decent crop, Diane Sibanda told the first-ever gathering of Sadc women farmers last month.

No greenie beanie

Sibanda is no ideology-driven greenie beanie: she is a hard-headed businesswoman who left her job as national sales manager for British Airways in Botswana to pursue her dream of creating a farming empire – and she’s succeeded, becoming an award-winning producer of veggies within a few years.

But rising temperatures posed a challenge to her. It’s too risky for a vegetable farmer to expose her crops in open fields, so she’s had to invest in expensive tunnels to protect them.

She’s not alone. Climate change was not on the agenda, but the subject crept in constantly as women farmers talked of extreme weather events flooding out fields, unusually severe droughts and extreme temperatures (hot and cold) unlike anything they’d ever experienced before.

Madagascan farmer Denise Rabebindrahasy, for example, has made a huge switch, from growing rice to livestock farming, thanks to a cycle of droughts and floods which made rice a very chancy investment. I’ve heard similar tales from our own farmers in Limpopo.

And days ago, I was in Botswana to address a group of journalists on science journalism. A delegate told me that the Meteorological Services is predicting very poor rains for half the rainy season, from January to March, for the southern and eastern parts of the country.

And this with the crucial Gaborone Dam at its lowest level in 50 years – it’s only 9% full. It’s part of a trend climate scientists have predicted: “the rest of the country will start to experience a deficit of rains in March 2015,” said the Met Service seasonal forecast.

I returned from Botswana to a Joburg sweltering in 30 degree-plus heat – in September, when historically the average high was 22.8. And to the news that globally, NASA had declared August 2014 the hottest August since 1880, just another in a plethora of temperature extremes in recent months.

I have a very personal relationship with the temperatures, because I grow veggies in my garden. Over the last seven years or so, like the farmers, I’ve battled to raise crops in the teeth of unseasonable temperatures, the early arrival of pests, massive heatwaves that kill tender seedlings.

I have no aircon in my car (yes, believe it) or home office – or veggie garden. I cannot ignore the changes that force me to plant ever earlier in the year, and drive my yields down.

In ‘The Year of Agriculture and Food Security’, as 2014 was declared by the African Union, we’re facing a dire threat to our ability as Africans to feed ourselves.

We have no more time in hand to indulge the people who fear that their comfy lifestyles and business models will have to change if we tackle climate change properly. They’re right, of course. They will. But so what? Does their comfort matter more than the lives of their human neighbours, or the animals, insects, and plants under threat (remember, more than half the Kruger’s species face extinction due to climate change)?

Their intransigence cannot be tolerated any longer; their insistence on business as usual is already costing lives. And with all the evidence before them, those who refuse to act now can reasonably be charged, not just with a crime against humanity, but with a crime against all life on this planet.

 - Fin24

*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own. Follow her on twitter.
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