Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THE MOST SERIOUS outbreak of desert locusts in 25 years is spreading across East Africa and posing an unprecedented threat to food security in some of the world’s most vulnerable countries, authorities say.
Unusual climate conditions are partly to blame.
The locust swarms hang like shimmering dark clouds on the horizon in some places.
Roughly the length of a finger, the insects fly together by the millions and are devouring crops and forcing people in some areas to wade through them.
An “extremely dangerous increase” in locust swarm activity has been reported by officials in Kenya this week.
One swarm measured 37 miles long by 25 miles wide in the north-east of the country, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) said in a statement.
“A typical desert locust swarm can contain up to 150 million locusts per square kilometre,” it said.
“Swarms migrate with the wind and can cover 100 to 150 kilometres in a day. An average swarm can destroy as much food crops in a day as is sufficient to feed 2,500 people.”
The outbreak of desert locusts, considered the most dangerous locust species, also has affected parts of Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibouti and Eritrea and the IGAD warned that parts of South Sudan and Uganda could be
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Best to think in geological timescales. In 300 million years they’ll be no evidence, apart from the odd fossil, that we ever existed or had any technology. In the long term we probably have no effect on the planet. Not a reason to make a mess of the place now, of course.
@Conall: You obviously don’t have children or grandchildren. Best to think in timescales of a few generations. Should we really not care about how we are affecting the lives of our descendants?
@Paraic: I have 3 small children and I regularly ask myself what kind of a world will be left for them. And I worry for them. And all the other little children
@G Fitz: I have no children and I’ve been banging the drum of fighting global warming since I was 16. Children might help some people care more but to think any human would want to leave the world a better place is beyond me. History doesn’t forget, help make sure they remember we fought the good fight
Also a million sea birds killed by heatwaves at sea. It’s time to wake up. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51140869
@Paraic: that’ll balance out the the fish stocks so. nature always finds a way
@Michael Connick: It’s not nature though is it? It’s mankind messing with nature.
@Paraic: Mankind IS part of nature, and we are the real plague
@Tony Gordon: and pretty soon nature will bite back, and hard.
@Michael Connick: you do know they died because here was no fish stocks…
@Tony Gordon: If you live in Australia, it already has.
Could be…what?
Just let his people go…
It’s communism or barbarism/annihilation. It really is as simple as that
It’s actually Capitalism that’s the route cause.
Global warming will destroy us however the planet will be fine.
have your say