War Is Just A Few Degrees Away

"War, children, is just a shot away", famously said Mick Jagger in Gimme Shelter, by British band The Rolling Stones. I'm not a massive Stones fan, but that verse has always struck me as a very intelligent, illustrious image of human nature. But what are the conditions that lead to the shot?

In this article, Daniel Wesangula portrays the growing desperation of the pastoralist communities at the feet of Mount Kenya. Two-thirds of the ice of the mountain's glaciers are gone, and the rivers below are drying up. The drought is killing the cattle, and the herders need to find grass, but the ranchers are also afraid, after one of them got shot and killed.

Violence is brewing in the area. Ranchers and farmers don't want the herds to come into their lands, but the pastoralists have a right to a livelihood. The rivers are really fading away, and things will only get worse. Shots get fired, and war is just a shot away.

From my point of view, the best thing about this article is this quote:

“We cannot do anything about it,” [Kenyan environmentalist and chairman of Kenya’s Water Towers Management Authority Isaac Kalua] says. “It is not our problem. We are not responsible for the massive emissions responsible for global glacial melts. But we are suffering the consequences.”

This is exactly what I miss when I read (and often, when I write) about climate change: the link between causes and consequences. We often find stories about the victims, with no clear references to the causes. Here, Wesangula has avoided the pothole with a quote that I find key to understanding the whole point of climate change: those who cause it are not usually those who suffer it, and nothing will change if the current order remains untouched.

The author has done an excellent job in connecting the dots between emissions, environmental consequences and human impact, reaching the psychological and even cultural level, with multiple sources and human stories. Excellent journalism in such a short read. Good job!