Where Are You From? Why Are You Here? An African Perspective on Global Warming

Global warming, although usually associated with imminent environmental disasters, also presents splendid opportunities for research and education and for collaboration between the rich and the poor that will benefit both groups. Unfortunately, efforts to take advantage of these opportunities are handicapped by the misperception that scientific disputes concerning imminent global climate changes have been settled—that the science “is over”—in addition to a failure to appreciate that some people face problems more urgent than adaptation to and mitigation of the climate changes scientists predict. Changes over the past few decades in the way we conduct our affairs in the Earth sciences, specifically the atmospheric and oceanic sciences, contribute to these misunderstandings. This is a subjective, personal account of those changes.