the rains have failed again this year

in Kenya. Twice. The long rains were supposed to come from March to May, the short rains from October to November. My father said on the phone this morning: "Everything is so dry - another drought. Other parts of the world have more rain than they can cope with, and we don't have a drop. The food shortages are already beginning."

I could hear the rain drip off the gutters outside as he spoke. I could hear George Bush's 2001 speech, shortly after the US reneged on the Kyoto Protocol, refusing to acknowledge the US's role as the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases: "We do not know how much effect natural fluctuations may have had on global warming."