Weather

While many people around the globe go to bed content, 40 million in East Africa are experiencing severe hunger (The Telegraph, May 17, 2023). This is 60 percent more people than last year. By July, experts believe one person in East Africa will die from hunger every 28 seconds.

Over a quarter of the European continent is currently in drought, and summer has not yet arrived (Politico, April 28, 2023). “A key reservoir serving millions of Catalans is dwindling away. A conflict over water triggered clashes in France, where several villages can no longer provide their residents with tap water.

Nearly a billion people dwelling in cities around the globe are experiencing a crisis concerning access to  water, and in the next three decades, that number is predicted to double, according to a new United Nations report (The Guardian, March 21, 2023). In fact, water demand in cities is predicted to increase by 80 percent by 2050. Currently, two to three billion people experience water shortages for at least one month each year.

Last year, over 43,000 people died in Somalia as a direct result of its regional drought (Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2023). Nearly half of these deaths were among children age five and younger! Thousands more are expected to die in the first six months of 2023, at a rate of about 135 people per day, all due to the continued drought in the Horn of Africa and the rising cost of food.