South Africa’s Survival Guide to Climate Change
Authors: Sipho Kings and Sarah Wild
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Language: English
Pages: 222
Format: Paperback
Price: R297 at Exclusive Books
The authors Kings and Wild, journalists with extensive experience in environmental issues, deal with the global causes and consequences of climate change but also highlight the role South Africa plays and the effects the country is experiencing right now. The book provides well-researched background as well as solutions. The information is of vital importance to all citizens, including game farmers whose ecosystems are being adversely affected.
South Africa’s situation and consequences
In 2019, SA experienced temperatures on average 2 C hotter than those recorded since 1900, which is twice the global average increase. According to the UN climate change body (IPCC), the difference between a 1,5 and 2 C increase is that the first is bad and the second very bad. SA is already feeling these very bad effects. Warming of our adjacent oceans means that much of our rain is not falling on land but lost over the sea. The rain that does fall on land is either sparse or so heavy that it is washing away topsoil and flowing away so rapidly that it doesn't get a chance to top up boreholes, dams and aquifers. This is affecting agriculture and reducing crop yields. While humans can make plans to collect and save water for towns and agriculture (as in Cape Town for example), ecosystems, especially in the interior, are becoming increasingly dry and the Karoo is continuing its expansion.
