Global warming and my neighbour's generator
The time is 10:15 pm. There is no electricity, and my neighbour's generator set is on. I can barely think through the noise, so I try to sleep instead, but even that is proving to be too much to handle. It feels as though the sweltering heat is accentuating the noise of the generator. I can hardly believe that the month is December. The rainy season should be giving way to the cool Harmattan wind, but it's hard to say if there was a rainy season at all. The rains came and went so haphazardly for several months that I wonder how our farmers have coped since most of Nigeria’s agriculture is rain-fed. I suppose these variations are largely due to global warming. I have read of melting Arctic sea ice, deforestation in the Amazon and the boreal forests of Canada and Russia, and the loss of coral reefs, but I have never quite understood how these events affect me. It was not long ago that they felt so far away, but this present discomfort brings it close to home. It is amazin...