I was reading an article in the Economist entitled, "How to make them feel the heat." The article addresses the snail's pace of world efforts to tackle global warming, while already vulnerable parts of the world are in danger of feeling climate changing effects sooner rather than later. A recent meeting in Nairobi reflected the relative apathy among many world leaders, as there was no agreement on what to do after the Kyoto protocol expires. According to the article, "[f]inance and foreign ministers would have been needed to cut a real deal, and hardly any of them bothered to attend the meeting." The article notes that those attending the meeting for the U.S. were defensive, those from China were "poorly represented," and India's representatives were unreceptive to suggestions for India to cap greenhouse gas emissions. While many worry about the poor in Africa and atrocities in areas like Darfur, are those in the U.S., China or India thinking about the brunt that Africa could face due to global warming? According to the article, the effects on food supplies in areas like the Horn of Africa could be "catastrophic." There may be both more droughts and more floods. African farmers are dependent on rain-fed farming. The problem lies in the fact that with climate change, animals will overgraze in pronounced dry spells, which will lead to more precious topsoil being washed away with the heavy rains.

Why do so many fail to view global warming and climate change as human rights issues? By simply going through the motions with meetings and refusing to take decisive and perhaps, drastic measures to cut greenhouse gases, we are potentially inflicting future famine on other nations that are already in a fragile state. When are we really going to get the wake up call that we can't continue our climate changing practices in the status quo manner? Instead of the U.S. simply sending aid to areas of Africa, we should be taking into account the damage that our greenhouse gas emitting practices could have on these poor countries in the future.