Africa The Lifeboat of The World: Black World Chooses Green Over Greed!

Cyclones, floods, locust swarms, and desertification have been cited as some of the effects on sub-Saharan Africa. With impacts felt through food insecurity, population displacement, and stress on water resources, but overall Sub Saharan Africa will fare better than 90% of the globe. The continent of Africa will receive several blessings that others will envy. The first being more Rainfall in the Areas of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Secondly sea erosion and sea rise although it will occur in West Africa it will not be as dire a situation that Europe, China, North America, and Australia will face. Simply because the continent is not floating like others it is the main land mass of the planet and the elevation is high.

The parts of Sub-Saharan-Africa are most vulnerable to global climate change? The arid and semiarid regions, but because of the shifting wind patterns and polar vortex those areas will receive a rainy season turning previously desert lands green. In recent years, discussion about the climate crisis has predominantly focused on fossil fuels and greenhouse gases; now, we’re coming to realise that the other side of that coin is protecting and replenishing the natural world. There is no better mechanism for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than nature, but in the past 5,000 years, human activity has reduced the Earth’s total biomass by an estimated 50%, and destroyed or degraded 70% of the world’s forests.

The plans to restore parts of East Africa, Central Africa and the Sahara are already underway by several countries. I may seem huge in scale but is relatively low tech: planting trees on the hilltops; terracing the steep slopes (by hand); adding organic material to the soil; controlling grazing animals; retaining water and using water collectors. The great green wall will be one of the most amazing endeavors to help African nations survive climate change! The "Great Green Wall" is an initiative to increase the amount of arable land in the Sahel, the region bordering Africa's Sahara Desert. 22 African nations are investing in projects as varied as agroforestry to sustainable development.

The Initiative brings together more than 20 countries, including Algeria, Burkina Faso, Benin, Chad, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, The Gambia and Tunisia. Regional and international partners include: African Forest Forum (AFF). By 2030, the Great Green Wall aims to sequester 250 million tons of carbon, restore 100 million hectares of currently degraded land, and create 10 million jobs for the growing African middle class and landowners.

Despite naysayers and multiple efforts to destabilize progress of 2022,over one-fourth of degraded land (25 million hectares) had been restored and 350,000 of the promised 10 million jobs had been created. They have also completed the training of 10 million people in sustainable land and water management practices, and seen $90 million USD generated by project activities.

Sub Saharan Africa also has untapped aquifers that have not been poisoned by fracking and mining. The volume of groundwater that’s held in African aquifers is estimated to be 0.66 million km³. This is more than 100 times the annual renewable freshwater resources stored in dams and rivers, and 20 times the freshwater stored in Africa’s lakes.

The size and shape of an aquifer is based on the body of rock beneath the Earth’s surface. Some can be in the form of caves and hold water on a large scale. Some can range from a few meters thick to hundreds of meterswith multiple layers. Aquifers can also extend for many kilometers or be localized in certain areas. Water gets into these aquifers in different ways. Some are filled by new rainfall, others hold old, or ancient, rainfall. In Africa, most are found less than 50 meters below the ground’s surface.

Many of Africa’s aquifers are spread across country borders, meaning countries have to share the water resource. The largest volumes of groundwater in Africa are found in large aquifers in Libya, South Africa, Kenya and Sudan. South Africa has two massive aquifers. The largest stretches from Cape Town to Gqeberha, a city 750km away. This geological formation covers a surface area of 37,000km! So there is a race to secure water for the future especially from nations outside of Africa that neglected to see the feasibility of investing in desalinization plants and protecting aquifers from privatization like billionaires are doing in the United States! Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates have been anxiously buying up land over strategic aquifers proclaiming they are interested in farming! George W. Bush caught similar heat years ago when he purchased 300,000 acres in Paraguay. The acreage included one of the largest freshwater aquifers in the world!