Poverty in Africa is Falling Fast Tuesday, Mar 9 2010
policy 10:43 pm
Brian Wang has the news.
Africa needs more rain. The West can theoretically boost rainfall in Africa.
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That’s good. It’s probably in Europe’s interest for North Africa to be a politically stable environment, since it seems likely that this might be a lucrative energy generating zone in future.
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c25/page_179.shtml
How do you believe that rainfall can be boosted?
I’m getting this picture in my head of the water cycle and some sort of trickle down technonomics and ideavaporation. What happens if technologies become more durable?
Nanotechnology could be adapted for desalination.
Sure Nanotech could be used for solving lots of problems.
But is there anything we can do now?
Maybe we could boost our C02 output.
More CO2 would mean a warmer climate, thereby enhancing water evaporation and thereby
water delivery to dry zones.
If this largely oversimplified relationship between CO2 and rainfall holds true and we found a way to actually rapidly and significantly increase our CO2 emissions.
Michael:
It’s been 9 days without a post. I’m going through a bad case of Accelerating Future withdrawal. I at least hope you’re on a cool vacation.
Ben: Satire doesn’t work well on the Internet.
For the record, CO2 is being boosted, also more evaporation doesn’t mean more rain where you would like it.
The only thing we can count on with climate change is that some areas of the world will no longer support large-scale production of the current crops. This will be really bad for countries that depend on a small number of crops to feed their population.
Gus – me too! JSH is gone to boot!
Dave:
I guess JSH has a shoulder injury of some kind. I hope he’s ok. He’s a really smart and creative guy.
Russell, Ben is right. The connection is not “largely” oversimplified, it’s well-supported.
The world is freezing. A warmer climate might require some changes in crops, but I have a feeling that people won’t experience mass famine just because of crop changes.
Why does Africa need more rain? I’ve nothing against people lifting out of poverty, but if I’m not entirely mistaken, poverty is partly the result of overpopulation and: more rain = more crops = more people = more eventual famine, migration, war, and poverty. Africa is already the most fertile continent by far, they’re not doing exactly poorly if you just look at the hyperexponential growth they’re capable of sustaining over there.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Fertility_rate_world_map_2.png
Michael: Can you cite some references for this?
It’s all very well to say “might require some changes in crops”, but unless you know a good way of retraining the farmers, replacing agricultural methods and machinery, and distributing new seeds then some people are going to lose. You can’t just change wheat fields to rice paddies without extra work!
Then there’s the issue of immigration. If a climate change decreases food production in country A but increases it in country B then what happens? Should country B allow mass immigration?
A significant number of wars have been started by changes in food production levels.
Postabundance: Good point about Malthusian population growth.