Millions are on the edge of starvation in the Horn of Africa due in part to severe drought. Photo: Filipe Moreira (flickr)

Somalia and Ethiopia are hovering at the edge of famine.

The Washington Post reported on the crisis in the “hungry horn” of Africa last week. In Somalia, U.N. officials predict that half of the population, about 3.5 million people, will need food aid. The New York Times explains the hunger is driven by rampant political insecurity, spikes in global food prices, devaluation of the local currency, and a severe drought.

The World Food Program is struggling to keep up, having already doubled the amount of food it distributes in Somalia and needing an additional 369,000 metric tons of food in Ethiopa. But Doctors Without Borders, a medical aid organization, says the situation just keeps getting worse as cereal prices in the Horn in the last year surged by as much as 375 percent. To make things worse, the drought has killed of most livestock, forcing formerly self-sufficient people to wait in line for food aid.

The next rainy season isn’t due till October, and the wells and watering holes that the people and animals depend on during the dry season are already drying up. Even the camels are hard pressed to survive.

Mercy Corps' country director in Somalia says "It's a life or death situation right now." A 72-year-old herder says it's "the worst I've ever seen."

International Medical Corps, another international medical aid organization in Somalia, is predicting grave starvation risks, with a recent 400 percent rise in the number of severely malnourished young children.

And the current drought — and its problems — are probably here to stay. Researchers have discovered that global warming is drying out the Horn of Africa — and it's happening much faster than anyone anticipated.

What will happen when current drought becomes a permanent shift to desert conditions? Somalia is only the first. Ethiopia is soon to follow.

Whether it is Somalia’s food crisis, the multi-year drought in Australia, or flooding in the American bread basket, climate change is going to vastly affect the world’s food markets.

Photo: Rob McDougall (flickr)

Access to cheap energy underpins modern societies. Finding enough to fuel industrialized economies and pull developing countries out of poverty without overheating the climate is a central challenge of the 21st century. — Michael Wines, New York Times

Sub-Saharan Africa is perilously close to an energy crisis.

Massive drought across Kenya and Ethiopia has slowed hydropower production to a trickle. Rickety electrical infrastructure in South Africa and elsewhere has led to huge rolling blackouts expected to go on for years in some regions, according to the International Herald Tribune. The World Bank says Africa's "lack of reliable power has already begun to hamper the region's development." The worst-hit African economies have seen economic growth slow by more than two percent.

Energy shortages impact a broad array of activities in these countries. In Uganda, for instance, power shortages are causing gas stations to run low on diesel. The environment suffers as well. For the 80 percent of sub-Saharan Africans who lack electricity, Inter Press Service News Agency says:

The destruction of natural vegetation could lead to desertification when there are no water catchment systems to feed rivers and streams. And when there is no water, the population in such an area suffers in many ways. They cannot plant crops and their animals die.

Solutions to the energy crisis still seem far off. India and China have begun funding new power generating facilities — in one instance providing Zambia's energy producer, Zesco, with $1.2 billion for upgrades and new capacity creation. But the sheer size of the problem suggests a multinational approach. "The best answer, most experts consulted agree, would be for nations to cooperate on regional power solutions," the New York Times reports. "One or two large regional plants, they say, could supply power more cheaply and efficiently than dozens of smaller ones."