Birds have given us early warning signs with the KZN floods that global warming is real

It was the coal mines in Britain which first hit upon the idea of using canaries as early warning systems for the presence of toxic gases underground, which could kill miners.

The birds would succumb first, allowing the miners a chance to escape.

It is birds again who may be giving us an ominous warning about our future as climate change reshapes our world.

Nicholas B Pattinson – a doctoral student at the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology at the University of Cape Town – has reported on research he and colleagues carried out into the effects of air temperature and drought on the breeding output of southern yellow-billed hornbills in the Kalahari Desert over a decade: from 2008 to 2019.

“We found that the breeding output of our study population collapsed during the monitoring period and was strongly correlated with temperature and rainfall. In the Kalahari, air temperatures have already risen more than 2ºC in a few decades. At this rate, by 2027, these birds will not breed at all at this site.”

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That profoundly disturbing conclusion should show clearly climate change is not something solely for debates in the rich northern hemisphere countries. It is on our doorstep and we are seeing its effects.

The recent devastating floods in KwaZulu-Natal were exacerbated by human failings – from overpopulation and bad development, as well as by poor flood system maintenance – but the amount of water which deluged the province was extreme.

And such extreme events are happening more regularly across the world. Because we are, essentially, a Third World country, we are vulnerable to the impact of severe weather.

We don’t have the technology, or money, to avoid it. Yet, we continue to pursue CO2 destruction through our dependence on fossil fuels. We should be listening – that’s not birdsong, it’s an alarm.