Our Planet with Anthony Mugo

It is predicted that Kenya’s mean annual temperature will increase by between 0.8 and 1.5 0 C by the year 2030. The predictions also indicate that what are now regarded as cold nights will become very rare over the period 2030 to 2060. With regard to rainfall, it is predicted that average annual rainfall will increase by between 2 and 9 mm by 2060. These predictions are recorded in a report that Kenya has submitted to the United Nations capturing the status of climate change and particularly levels of greenhouse gases that the country currently emits specifying the sectors from where these gases particularly carbon dioxide are likely to come from. Kenya’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emission is negligible. However, the amount of greenhouse gases emitted in Kenya is likely to increase as the country continues to pursue its dream of becoming a rapidly industrialising middle income country by 2030 as per Vision 2030. What do these changes in the country’s climate

The impact of climate change is getting particularly manifested in Northern Kenya in the form of a biting water shortage. In Marsabit County from where I am writing this post for example, members of the pastoralist community are reporting that they are solely relying on water delivered to them by the County government using water bowsers. Most boreholes have dried. Rains that the weatherman had forecast will be falling in October have not come, although the signs are now thankfully in place that it could rain anytime now. Drought has now become almost a permanent feature of the Northern Kenyan climate. The altered climatic conditions are forcing a gradual change in communities’ lifestyles that has never been seen before. For example, crop farmers who have grown maize and beans foe generations have resorted to growing Miraa (Khat) as an alternative livelihood option. Livestock keepers, whose cattle and goat herds have been decimated by drought are learning how to rear the more

It has now become fashionable to tout residential properties containing boreholes as the ultimate standard to consider while deciding where to purchase or build a property. This development should make Kenyans very afraid. If we dig deeper (no pan intended) into this recent development, we discover a distressing link between the increasing need for boreholes and the accelerated degeneration of our natural ecosystem. Such destruction is the result of past failure by the authorities to enforce regulations relating to the conservation of our natural heritage, particularly our main water towers, forests, wetlands, rivers and lakes. When the negative impacts of ongoing climate change are thrown into this mix, the emerging picture is truly frightening. What we are never told by those popularising boreholes is that each additional one being sunk today has to be deeper than those sunk earlier as our groundwater reserves get gradually depleted. In other words, the rate at which extr