Nigeria
In the displacement camps of north-east Nigeria, most residents have the same answer for why 2.6 million people have been forced from their homes in this region. They are running from Boko Haram, the jihadist militants who still control significant parts of the Lake Chad basin.
But ask about how Boko Haram gained momentum in the first place, and a more complex narrative emerges. The extremists capitalised on high levels of local poverty, alienation and unemployment in north-east Nigeria. And that in turn, many local residents argue, was fuelled – in part – by the shrinking of Lake Chad, and the desertification of the surrounding area. With global temperatures soaring ever higher, it’s a trend unlikely to be reversed any time soon.
“It’s affected our livelihood, it’s affected farming and fishing,” says Mustapha Ali, a 50-year-old who grew up close to the lake’s former shores, and who is now living in a camp for internally displaced people. “We used to farm watermelon here, wheat, and rice – but because of the shrinkage of the lake, we can’t any more. Little by little it became harder and harder to [irrigate the] farm.”
Since the 1970s, global warming has caused the lake to shrink by around 90%. Once one of the world’s biggest lakes, at 25,000 sq km, it is now less than 2,500 sq km. Towns that Ali remembers reaching by boat can now be reached by car. At least one settlement has even been built on land that used to be underwater, Ali says.
For residents like Ali, the desperation caused by the shrinking of the lake was clearly a contributing factor to the rise of extremism.
“It’s helped the rise of Boko Haram,” Ali adds. “A lot of the youth there were unemployed, and when they have nothing to do, Boko Haram becomes an option. If you’re wealthy and you have things to do, you don’t want things like [Boko Haram] to happen.” Patrick Kingsley at Lake Chad
US
The Iditarod Trail Sled dog race is a fabled 1,000-mile-long trek through Alaska’s frozen wilderness, held annually since 1967. Unusually warm weather prompted a change in the starting location for last year’s race, while 7,000 gallons of snow was shipped in ahead of this year’s event in case of a lack of powder. The race, held in March, followed Alaska’s second warmest winter on record – the latest in a string of warm winters.
Chas St George, chief operations officer at the Iditarod trail committee, said: “You have ups and downs in terms of snow but this year and the year before were very mild in terms of weather and snowfall. Our creeks are flowing earlier and we are also getting more sun, which provides its own challenge for the people racing.
“Last year we staged the race out of Fairbanks because of a lack of snow, which is quite a distance further north. It’s cooler there, there’s more snow. We’ve only been forced to do that kind of thing in the last few years. There are times when these teams run on no snow at all. The question is whether you have enough snow at the start, until you get to the interior.
“This year for the ceremonial start, where people come out to watch the teams through Anchorage, we had to shorten the course from 11 miles to three miles. That was for safety reasons because there was only enough snow to get to a certain point. We haven’t had to shorten the course like that before.
“When it thaws and then freezes, all what’s left is ground that is still frozen, it’s very slick ice. It becomes a safety issue. People want to go as far as they can, that’s what they do this for, but they were very understanding. I’m sure the dogs were disappointed.
“We did have a contingency to get more snow in by rail this past year. It wasn’t needed though, we had enough snow, thank goodness. In parts of the course there was very little snow and then suddenly a huge amount of it hit.
“In Alaska there’s a ton of research that shows we are sort of at ground zero here [for climate change]. There’s been a clear warming trend. I don’t see significant changes to the race in the next couple of years but over the next 20 to 30 years we might have to look at it through a different lens. We may have to do things differently. But we want to keep this tradition going.” Oliver Milman in New York
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/14/it-was-too-hot-even-to-leave-home-stories-from-the-worlds-hottest-year
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