I really don't want to read that article. Should I?
Yes you should, though you'll wish you hadn't.
Last year I watched this series: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/molecule-that-made-us/
And the final episode includes similar droughts in South Africa (I've been reading for ages about coming water crises but that series was a good and disturbing reminder).
I wonder how viable the potential solutions mentioned at the end of the article, such as rainwater harvesting and greater use of the coastline, are.
Not very!
Heebie fails to mention how gorgeous the photography is.
I was also idly wondering if there's any connection to this terrible situation and to piracy.
My job responsibilities have shifted from research to teaching (by my choice), and so I don't really need a new intellectual project, but I'm somewhat tempted to start on exploring refugees and displacement, even if only teach a course on the topic. Alternatively, I might just want to start volunteering with a local resettlement organization. I think it was a good 8 or 9 years ago when I told my students that migration and refugees were going to be the hot new topics in global politics going forward, and it looks like I was correct.
The piracy was actually concentrated in Puntland, the other de-facto independent piece of Somalia to the east, with which Somaliland is having a border war. Somaliland wants very much to be respectable, so it didn't go for the Barbary development model. https://africanarguments.org/2021/05/somaliland-at-30-still-unrecognised-but-alive-and-well/
Refugee studies very definitely a growth area.
Alternatively, I might just want to start volunteering with a local resettlement organization.
I have also been thinking along these lines for myself. I think another commenter who might not want to be explicitly named works in this area, right? I'd be curious to talk more with you, Dr Robot, but I'm not on FB... maybe I'll drop my burner email address in here.
thx for link as always, MC.