Pirate's Cove

Much of Nigeria is arid, and has been for centuries, especially the northern areas, which tend to see 20 inches or less a year of rain. The Sahara Desert has been encroaching on northern Nigeria for at least 5,000 years, and, scientists think that the area would have been considered a desert even during the last glacial age, since it receives so little rain, do to the location. But, you know, facts are immaterial to the Cult Of Climastrology and their official media outlets

Cows obstruct Nigeria’s capital as climate change and development leave herders with nowhere to go

At an intersection seven miles from the presidential villa, frustrated drivers honk as a herd of cattle feeds on the grass beautifying the median strip and slowly marches across the road, their hooves clattering against the asphalt. For the teenage herder guiding them, Ismail Abubakar, it is just another day, and for most drivers stuck in the traffic, it’s a familiar scene unfolding in Nigeria’s capital Abuja.

Abubakar and his cattle’s presence in the city center is not out of choice but of necessity. His family are originally from Katsina State in northern Nigeria, where a changing climate turned grazing lands into barren desert. He moved to Idu — a rural, bushy and less developed part of Abuja — many years ago. But it now hosts housing estates, a vast railway complex and various industries.

Fulani herders like Abubakar are traditionally nomadic and dominate West Africa’s cattle industry. They normally rely on wild countryside to graze their cattle with free pasture, but the pressures of modernization, the need for land for housing and crop farming and human-caused climate change are challenging their way of life. To keep cattle off of Abuja’s major roads and gardens, some suggest that herders need to start acquiring private land and operating like other businesses. But to do that, they’d need money and government incentives.

Idu is right outside of Abuja. Katsina state is as far north as you can get in Nigeria, so, that area will have been mostly desert for thousands of years, hence, nothing to do with human caused climate change mule fritters.

“It’s disheartening,” said Baba Ngelzarma, the president of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, a Fulani pastoralists’ advocacy group. “Nigeria is presented as an unorganized people. The herders take the cattle wherever they can find green grasses and water at least for the cows to survive, not minding whether it is the city or somebody’s land.”

Yes, they do, and the northern part of Nigeria has been a barely optimal area for grazing for a long time, well before the industrial revolution. It’s been hit or miss for farming and grazing, being an arid area.

Meanwhile

New study suggests climate change will make hail bigger and more costly

Hail will become less common but larger and more damaging because of human-caused climate change — according to a new study published in the Nature journal Climate and Atmospheric Science. (snip)

His group simulated future hailstorms using weather models run on supercomputers and analyzed how such storms would change as greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels increase in the atmosphere.

If it “suggests”, that is looking at a crystal ball, not science, which is facts. But, considering they used their computer models which are biased, this is no real surprise. I do enjoy that they’re trotting out the “less common but bigger” like they did for hurricanes when hurricane strikes fell way off.

Read: AP Manages To Drag Climate Crisis (scam) Into Story About Herding Cows In Nigeria’s Capitol City »