Collide-a-scape

The best that can be said about this is that at least Romm had the decency to include the photo credit this time. Obviously, my comment and post struck a nerve.

Why Romm doubles down and insists on associating global warming with the Somalia famine is beyond me. It’s like focusing on harsh winter weather for the freezing death of a homeless person. My post acknowledges that anthropogenic climate change could be an exacerbating factor in East Africa’s drought. But my point, which Romm conveniently ignores, is that the Somali famine is wholly a man-made tragedy, in which global warming is not a relevant factor. In my post, I provide an array of experts who explain the main causes of the famine. Still, Romm wants to have it both ways, so he talks to USGS drought expert Chris Funk, who gets used like a pawn:

Funk agreed with me that the fact that Somalia is a failed state is a major reason that a brutal drought has turned into a devastating famine:  “No doubt, the most important thing, is the mis-government,” as he called it.  But the point is that a “climate-driven drought  set up the conditions where mis-governance could lead to catastrophe.”

First of all, “mis-governance” is putting it mildly. Somalia is a basket case. It hasn’t had a functioning central government in two decades. Even the latest transitional government, which only (barely) controls Mogadishu is a farce, and would collapse if it wasn’t propped up by African Union peacekeepers. I have to wonder if Funk’s quote (and, BTW, I have tremendous respect for him) is in the context he intended, because no, the real point is that decades of warlordism and non-governance set up the conditions that have led to catastrophe.

If Romm wants to write about Somalia, he ought to talk with the right experts.

UPDATE: Putting things in perspective, William Connolley writes:

Climate might well be an aggravating factor, but in comparison to being shot up, attacked and generally having your entire civil society destroyed by armed gangs, climate comes a pretty poor second.

UPDATE: In his post, Romm quotes from this recent excellent commentary by Chris Funk in Nature. (Oddly, Romm doesn’t link to it, even though the piece is not behind a paywall.) As Andy Revkin summarized Funk’s column in August:

It describes his research linking a warming Indian Ocean — when combined with La Niña conditions — with reductions in crucial rainfall from March to June in East Africa. But more important, it describes the value of the integrated analysis being done by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, organized by the United States Agency for International Development, to try to cut the chances that a drought like the present one could spawn a famine.

Now let me quote from a salient part of Funk’s commentary:

So what went wrong? Why weren’t the warnings — before and during the drought — enough to avert a food crisis that might turn into famine? Much of the problem is tied to political issues, especially in Somalia, but there are also strong climate and agricultural components.

The global climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were never intended to provide rainfall trend projections for every region. These models say that East Africa will become wetter, yet observations show substantial declines in spring rainfall in recent years. Despite this, several agencies are building long-term plans on the basis of the forecast of wetter conditions. This could lead to agricultural development and expansion in areas that will become drier. More climate science based on regional observations could be helpful in addressing these challenges.

Lastly, here’s something else Funk said in that piece that deserves note:

Emergencies such as the one in East Africa will become more common unless there is a focus on improving agricultural production…Better regional climate-change and forecast models, combined with more effective agriculture in drought-threatened areas will not solve all problems, but they should reduce the need for emergency responses, and make such measures more effective when they are necessary.

If a picture, as the adage goes, says a thousand words, then I take umbrage to a picture of an emaciated Somali child being used as a prop in this post. For the meaning of it does not support the text. I went over to Climate Progress and left this comment:

The picture accompanying this post is of a Somali child. Neither climate change, nor the current drought in East Africa are primary causes of the tragic famine in Somalia. It’s unnecessarily exploitive to use this child’s picture to reinforce a climate change message.

It’s also misleading to suggest there is a meaningful climate connection to this picture of a malnourished child.

Joe Romm responded, which I’ll excerpt here:

This is an absurd stretch, even for you, Keith.

First, warming of the Indian ocean has been directly linked to the Somali drought, but you wouldn’t know that as you hardly ever write about the scientific literature anymore. You just find the most tortured excuses to attacked those of us who do. You devote far, far more posts to attacking those who try to articulate the science than to those who spread disinformation.

Hmm, I’m sure a few well-known climate skeptics might beg to differ, but that’s another argument for a separate post. Let me restate what I wrote several months ago about the Somali famine:

This humanitarian tragedy is not in any way attributable to global warming.

Those who are familiar with Somalia’s recent history and current state of affairs do not mention climate change as a relevant factor to the country’s latest tragedy. As one Somali expert notes:

The leading cause of the famine is the absence of a functioning state in Somalia. The current drought has affected other states such as Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia. Although communities there are vulnerable, none of these countries face the same level of starvation taking place in stateless Somalia.

Ed Carr has an informative post that makes the same point, with more detail:

Famine stops at the Somali border…Basically, the people without a functional state and collapsing markets are being hit much harder than their counterparts in Ethiopia and Kenya, even though everyone is affected by the same bad rains, and the livelihoods of those in Somalia are not all that different than those across the borders in Ethiopia and Kenya.  Rainfall is not the controlling variable for this differential outcome, because rainfall is not really variable across these borders where Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia meet.

Here’s Oxfam on the root causes:

Years of of internal violence and conflict have been highly significant in creating the conditions for famine in Somalia.

It’s also important to know, as this expert points out, that the famine has struck hardest in regions controlled by  Al-Qaeda linked extremists:

South-central Somalia is controlled by al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab is paranoid about international NGOs and a year ago, they banned aid agencies from helping people in that region. A lot of the crisis is attributable to the fact that many people whose situation was very vulnerable did not get adequate help in time. That is why you see this crisis has reached this level.

Finally, Andy Revkin, in this essential Dot Earth post, weaves together all the strands of the story, including the climate angle:

For the moment, the science is mixed on how the greenhouse-driven heating of the planet might affect east African patterns of drought.

But he also helpfully reminds us of the region’s paleo-climate history (which is mostly absent from current discussions):

Over all, in considering policy options related to African progress, it’s vital to keep in mind that the climate history of peri-Saharan regions includes millenniums-long patterns of mega-drought far more extreme than anything experienced in modern times.

None of this is to say that global warming will not exacerbate the already vulnerable societies in the East Africa, especially those, like Somalia, stuck in an endless cycle of political unrest and violence. But man-made climate change is certainly not responsible for Somalia’s current agony. In his post,  Revkin wrote that he was

irked by recent efforts to link this catastrophe to human-driven climate change. That is an unsupported distraction from the causes, and any talk of addressing this crisis.

In my post this summer, I expressed a similar sentiment and added:

Anyone who wants to invoke climate change as a contributing factor to Somalia’s latest tragedy should spend 48 hours having tea with the warlords and Islamic extremists that currently rule much of the country.

As best as I can tell, Joe Romm has never linked the Somalia famine in any way to climate change. Additionally, the photo that I object to, as Romm pointed out in his response to me, does not contain a caption. Well, leaving aside that it should have a credit of some sort, I think it’s reasonable to infer that anyone following recent world events might associate the photo with the Somali famine. Curious about the picture, I moved my cursor over it and sure enough, a small caption appeared, reading “Somali boy.”

After reading Romm’s response to my comment, I went back to the photo on Climate Progress and noticed that the internal caption had been erased (unless my cursor is no longer picking it up for some reason).* I wrote this post, in part, so a malnourished Somali child would not be seen as just an anonymous prop in a climate blog.

Update: Kudos to a reader for tracking down where the photo originally appeared. Photo taken by Peter Biro for IRC

*Shortly after publishing this post, I went back to CP and tried again. This time, the cursor picked up the internal caption: “boy_somaliafamine

“It’s kind of this post-modern, science fiction chaos,” said J. Peter Pham, an expert on Somalia with the Atlantic Council, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

That description comes from a weekend article in the Buffalo News. It’s actually a profile of an anonymous NY state bureaucrat that opens this way:

His first day back to work was a bit surreal.

Less than two months ago, he was prime minister of Somalia. He battled terrorists, pirates and warlords. He addressed dignitaries from the United Nations.

Now, Mohamed A. Mohamed is back at his old job at the [NY] state Department of Transportation downtown, back to his little cubicle with a window overlooking Swan Street.

That was the job he had before becoming Somalia’s prime minister.

That’s Somalia.

There is much that is astonishing about today NYT story on Somalia, above all this:

One American official recently conceded that Somalia’s “best hope” was the government’s new military chief, a 60-year-old former artillery officer who, until a few months ago, was assistant manager at a McDonald’s in Germany.

Meanwhile, in the Guardian, you can read how the tide may be turning in Somalia, thanks to Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, the current president, whose government controls a few blocks in Mogadishu, the country’s capital. This snippet from the Guardian story is…well, interesting:

Sharif has won praise from western governments and the African Union for his attempts to create viable institutions and financial accountability.

For full whiplash effect, read both the NYT and Guardian pieces back to back.

All that pirate action in Somalia has created a booming “stock market” of sorts. Foreign Policy thinks this might help shine a necessary spotlight on the Big Fish behind all the hostage-taking. Elsewhere, these masterminds are referred to as “a few deep-pocketed financiers.”  And who would they be?