Global Warming Superstars
October 25, 2021: BBC reports a military coup underway in Sudan
September 21: attempted military coup in Sudan
September 5: military coup in Guinea
May 24: military coup in Mali
April 20: military coup in Chad
March 31: attempted military coup in. Niger
When I was a child in the 1960s, my paternal grandparents lived in Grantham where we would be sent to stay in summer. Grandma Rushby was a jolly, kind-hearted woman, but she had a particular dislike for one nearby shop. During World War One, she told us, the owner had always refused credit to customers who were struggling. He was Alf Roberts, father of future prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.
In 1983 it was Mrs Thatcher’s joyless Britain that I escaped, taking my first job, teaching English in El Fasher, the provincial capital of Darfur in Sudan. On the surface it was a peaceful dusty settlement where nomadic camel-herding tribes from the north came to trade with farmers from the south. The souk was a colourful and exciting place full of noise and people, but desertification was putting pressure on all communities. Over-grazing was a problem. Everywhere you went there would be a goat attacking some poor shrub that was clinging to life.
To The Volcano
We rode north out of El Fasher on top of a truck filled with sacks of onions, myself and a fellow teacher, Steve. Ever since arriving in town, I had been staring at the maps of Darfur, examining the mountainous country to the north, a land that eventually petered out into a vast featureless terrain that extended across the Sahara Desert to the Libyan border. I had the map pinned on the wall of my bedroom and I'd lie on the rope-strung bed, swatting flies and imagining vestiges of forest in deep shady canyons where lost populations of fabulous birds and beasts still roamed. The explorer Wilfrid Thesiger had shot lions up there in the 1930s: surely there must be something left?
The desert road north was not an easy one. Youths were employed by the driver to leap off occasionally and throw metal ladders under the wheels to save us from getting sand-bogged. If the soft ground extended, they had to grab the ladder as it emerged from the rear wheels, sprint to the front - through that same treacherous ground - and chuck the ladder back down. Meanwhile the truck would be rolling and plunging like a galleon in a storm, everyone on top clinging on. Someone pointed out a huge bird, a bustard, standing motionless as if heat-stricken. Every now and then we would pass a few houses, simple mud cubes with a sun shade out front. If they were occupied, there would be a few desperate thorn trees in the process of being devoured by goats. More often they would be ruins and there would be no trees at all. Once we saw a woman carrying a large water pot on her head, miles from any possible water source. It was almost impossible to imagine how anyone could squeeze a life from such a desolate environment, but in places there would be patches of cultivation, a few lines of bright green sorghum. None of us knew that these small slivers of hope were not destined to come to fruition: Darfur was entering a terrible drought that would destabilise the entire province. What I did see confirmed what I thought about desertification: that tree-chopping and goats were responsible. The nights were bitterly cold and food needed cooking, especially tough old goat meat. What else could it be? British engineer Guy Callendar had demonstrated global warming by rising CO2 levels in 1938, but in the early 1980s scientists were more interested in acid rain and the possibility of a new ice age.
The last settlement marked on my map was Malha and it was there we arrived after dark. We rented two beds at a building that optimistically called itself a hotel and drank glasses of red sweet tea. In the morning, leaving our bags, we set out for our goal: a volcanic crater we had heard about, a few hours walk away into the Meidob Mountains. By the time we were climbing up the scrubby desert towards the rim of the crater, the heat was already merciless and I felt desperately tired, far more exhausted than I might have expected.
There were trees here, a few ragged acacia thorns, every one of them bearing the scars of both humans and animals: all leaves and twigs removed to a height that goats could reach, then several stumps of boughs that people had cut for firewood. In places were suggestions that there had once been a substantial forest here. The Sahara is full of such signs of previous life: the massive timbers in a hut roof, the dusty fragments of an ostrich egg, the fossils, the tortoise shell hung from a branch, ancient rock art or inscriptions that show a lost world of trees and animals - in time I would see all of these. It is the same story further afield: in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq. I have sat in many arid wastelands and stared at rock reliefs showing hunting scenes or parades through luxuriant jungle. The oldest man-made structure on earth at Gobekli Tepe in Eastern Turkey, built 12,000 years ago, is now surrounded by arid treeless wastes, but its stone reliefs show lions, boars and ducks. These are reminders that human impact on the earth began long ago, when agriculture started, and has been gathering pace ever since.
On the crater rim we looked down into a perfect bowl, then scrambled down a couple of hundred feet. In the centre a few camels and goats were drinking from deep pools of purplish water. Their owner warned us not to drink.
By this time my head was spinning and I had severe stomach cramps. I hurried off behind some rocks. The climb out the crater became a nightmare. Steve became concerned and went ahead, saying he would get to Malha and try and bring a vehicle. When I finally got back up to the volcanic rim, I fainted and fell over, cracking my head on a rock. The sun soon roused me. I staggered down the slope into the shade of a thorn tree and lay down on my back, falling instantly asleep.
I have no idea how long I was there. Weird dreams flitted through my head, something about winged hyenas and giant birds. I was jolted back to life by a jet of warm liquid hitting me in the face. I opened my eyes expecting to see the branches of the thorn tree, but instead there was something hairy inches above me, plus a powerful musky smell. Another powerful jet hit me. Manna from Heaven? The next one went in my open mouth. Yes, heaven, absolute heaven. Warm delicious milk raining into me.
It took a few moments to work out that there was a goat's udder hanging over me and a tough work-worn hand squeezing milk into my mouth. Eventually the goat stepped on my chest and ran off. I sat up and felt better. I did not know at that moment, but I was suffering the first of many bouts of giardiasis, an intestinal parasite.
The farmer who had saved me had a cheeky grin that I can still see. He handed me more milk in a tin cup. I drank it all. Nothing had ever tasted quite so good. The goats milled around, standing on their rear legs to ravage a few dry twigs from the tree. I handed back the cup, then the farmer chased off down the hill, lobbing stones at wayward animals. I felt weak, but much better. The milk had brought me back from a bad place. I'd been saved by a goat. From then on, I swore, I would be more careful about blaming desertification on those decent hard-working animals. It was, after all, not their fault that humans did not build fences.
Steve and I made it back to Malha and then to El Fasher. When I got home and unzipped my bag, a tiny desert shrew leaped out and ran away. I’d met my first global warming refugee, but it took another six years before any world leader took the issue seriously.
It’s worth watching Margaret Thatcher’s speech to the UN in August 1989. Not only could it have easily been cut and pasted into Glasgow 2021, but it proves that no one is wrong all the time.