Climate change in my community

Summer maize ploughing seemed impossible for Misty Mount residents

By Qaqamba Matundu

Photo by Qaqamba Matundu

 

December is a month that most people in the Eastern Cape use to plant maize because, summer is best known to be a great season for plants to blossom nicely with the help of sun, but due to climate change that has been ongoing the past years things are no longer the same. December is dominated by extreme heat. Misty Mount is a small disadvantaged rural area in Mthatha in the Eastern Cape with no job opportunities. People survive only by farming and now it’s difficult to make a living because everything is dying including livestock.

The scorching sun makes the soil to be hard rock. Mzoxolo Ndiki, one of Misty Mount residents affected by climate change said, “Last year I asked a tractor to come plough for me since it was that period of maize, but it took weeks for it to finally manage because the soil was very dry. I then planted what later became waste because everything withered in front of me. This was not happening for the first time. I used to plant maize for my chickens to have something to eat but now everything is falling apart.”

Some people say weather is what you get, and climate is what you expect. Weather refers to the more local change in the climate we see around us, on a short time scale from minutes to hours, to days to weeks. Climate refers to longer-term averages and can be thought of as weather averaged over several decades.

“I had about 23 cows in 2020 but I’m currently left with 15. They died due to dehydration and heat. Dams become dry and there’s nothing I can do to protect my livestock and provide water so that they can survive. I think we have been experiencing this for quite some time now.” says Mluleki

Food insecurity must be number 1 effect that climate change has on Misty Mount residents because they make a living through ploughing vegetables, fruit etc but with drought occurring, it’s difficult for them to access sufficient food, climate change is causing people to live in poverty.

Diarrhoea is a common disease that most people in Misty Mount suffer from because of using dirty water. With no rain, tanks run out of water forcing people to fetch impurified water to drink and cook from the river or dams that cows, horses and sheep drinks water from and that is not healthy.

We know that climate change is caused by human activities but pinning down who is responsible is trickier than it might seem. “Fossil fuels-coal, oil and gas are by far the largest contributor to global climate change, accounting for over 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emission and nearly 90 percent of all carbon dioxide emission.’’ Says Climate Action.

There are times whereby people in Misty Mount live without electricity for the whole week due to unforeseen circumstances that would forces most residents to make fire. Same applies in winter when it’s cold, people make fire to keep their homes warm. There are always wildfires with smoke that affect climate and the atmosphere occurring in winter which most of the time burn livestock on the field eating grass.

According to Greenpeace, climate change is a threat to many lives out there but there are solutions, from changing how we get our energy to limiting deforestation. Rapid deforestation contributes to climate change creating “heat Island” out of land that would normally be protected by trees from overheating, so planting trees is an action people can do to halt deforestation and commit to rebuilding damaged ecosystem.

The single-most important thing that we can do to combat climate change is to drastically reduce our consumption of fossil fuel. The burning of coal, old and natural gas in our building and transportation is responsible for most of the emission that are warming the planet more than 75 percent. In addition to altering the climate, dirty energy also comes with unacceptable ecological and human health impact. Transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy is the key to winning the fight against climate change. Eliminating pollution from the billions of vehicles driving across the planet is essential to achieve net-zero global emission by 2050.

Throughout history, people and societies have adjusted to and coped with changes in climate change and extreme with varying degrees of success. Climate change (drought in particular) has been at least partly responsible for the rise and fall of civilization. Earth’s climate has been relatively stable for the past 10 000 years, and this stability has allowed for the development of our modern civilization and agriculture. As our climate change, we will need to adapt. The faster the climate change, the more difficult it will be.