Title: When the Rain Stopped: A Personal Reckoning with Climate Change
Growing up in northern Nigeria, the rains were a promise. They were a song sung by the wind before the sky split open, drenching the red earth and breathing life into our fields. My father would watch the horizon with a calm certainty, knowing that no matter how scorching the sun had been, the rains would come. They always did.
Until they didn’t.
It started gradually, like a whisper that no one wanted to hear. One year, the rains came late. The next, they barely came at all. Our fields, once lush and green, turned brown and brittle. The yam vines struggled to climb, and the millet stalks bowed low as if apologizing for their weakness. My father, once confident in his knowledge of the land, now stared at the empty sky, his face etched with worry.
At first, we told ourselves it was just an odd year — an anomaly that would soon correct itself. But when the next rainy season came and went with barely a drizzle, the village grew anxious. Elders gathered under the old baobab tree, debating what could have gone wrong. They consulted traditional diviners, offered sacrifices to appease the spirits, and held prayers in the mosque, hoping to bring back the rain.
I remember asking my father one evening, “Why won’t the rains come?” He didn’t answer at first, just traced lines in the dust with his foot. “The world is changing,” he finally said. “The land doesn’t know us anymore.”
It wasn’t just our family. The entire community was affected. Wells that once gushed with clear, cool water ran dry. The livestock grew thin and restless, their ribs visible beneath dull coats. Neighbors began selling their cattle at desperate prices or migrating to cities in search of work. Those who stayed whispered about curses and angry spirits. No one wanted to face the truth: that the climate itself was shifting beyond our control.
My mother tried to keep hope alive by planting smaller gardens closer to the house, using what little water we could spare. She grew leafy greens and groundnuts, insisting that even in hardship, we should not give up. “The land will remember us,” she would say, tending to the parched soil with her bare hands. “We just have to remind it who we are.”
One evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, I sat with my grandmother by the cooking fire. She told me stories from her youth — tales of endless rains that filled the rivers to the brim and made the fields bloom like a paradise. She spoke of how the women would gather by the riverbank, washing clothes and singing while their children splashed in the shallows. I could barely imagine it. The riverbed was nothing but cracked earth now, littered with dry leaves and forgotten dreams.
Despite the struggle, life went on. We adapted in small ways, planting drought-resistant crops like sorghum and cowpea. Women formed cooperatives to buy water tanks and shared what they could. Children learned to carry water from distant wells, their small hands chafed and blistered from the effort. My father built makeshift canals to catch whatever rain might come, but more often than not, they sat empty, baking in the sun.
When I left for university, I carried the weight of those parched fields with me. I studied environmental science, hoping to find answers, but the deeper I dug, the more helpless I felt. Industrial emissions, deforestation, global warming — problems too vast for one person or one village to solve. Yet, I couldn’t forget my father’s words: The land doesn’t know us anymore.
At school, I met students from other parts of the country, and we shared stories of our struggles with climate change. Some spoke of coastal erosion swallowing up entire villages, while others described the harm caused by desertification creeping steadily southward. It was then I realized that we were not alone in this fight — that the forces reshaping our lives were larger than anything we could comprehend.
One holiday, I went back to my village. The fields were barren, but the community was still resilient. They had formed a cooperative, experimenting with drought-resistant crops and learning water conservation techniques. It wasn’t enough to reverse the damage, but it was something — a stubborn refusal to give in. My father’s hands were rough from digging irrigation ditches, and despite the exhaustion, there was a flicker of hope in his eyes.
One day, as we worked together to clear debris from a dried-up streambed, he spoke with a kind of quiet resolve. “We cannot make the rains come,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow. “But we can prepare for them when they do. We can’t sit idle, waiting. We have to keep moving forward, even when it feels hopeless.”
His words struck a chord in me. Back at university, I joined a group of students advocating for sustainable agriculture and climate adaptation in rural communities. We organized workshops and brought experts to discuss ways to maximize water efficiency and reduce soil degradation. I shared stories from my village, using my family’s experience as a lens through which to understand the broader crisis.
I learned that while policy changes and international agreements were crucial, they often felt distant from the people most affected. Grassroots initiatives — the simple, practical solutions forged by necessity — made a more immediate difference. I spoke about how my mother had started planting groundnuts closer to the house, and how neighbors had pooled resources to buy water tanks. It wasn’t grand or revolutionary, but it was something tangible and real.
Eventually, I started writing about our experiences, weaving stories of struggle and resilience with research on climate adaptation. One of my essays caught the attention of a local NGO, and they reached out to support our community with seeds for drought-resistant crops and training on water management. The help was small but meaningful — a spark of hope amid the uncertainty.
Today, I still wrestle with guilt and frustration, knowing that those who bear the brunt of climate change are often the least responsible for causing it. Wealthy nations continue to emit carbon at unprecedented rates while communities like mine pay the price. Yet, despite the anger, I hold on to the spirit of my village, refusing to let despair win. We are not just victims of a changing world; we are survivors, learning to bend without breaking.
As I work alongside my community to build more resilient systems, I realize that true resilience is not just about adapting to change — it’s about preserving the dignity and spirit that make us who we are. My father still watches the horizon, but now his gaze carries a deeper resolve. He no longer waits for the rains as a matter of faith; he prepares for them with the certainty that, one day, they will return.
And maybe, just maybe, the rains will remember us someday.
Chris White’s appointment as energy secretary represents a calculated shift toward environmental degradation. Behind his polished image lies a network of corporatism and corruption, eroding ecological safeguards to benefit powerful fossil fuel interests.
White’s career is deeply tied to the fossil fuel industry, notably through his tenure at BlackHydra Energy, a multinational linked to global environmental destruction. His policies promote deregulation disguised as economic growth, enabling unchecked resource extraction and dismantling of green initiatives like methane emission standards. Token gestures like subsidizing “clean coal” distract from his broader agenda.
Though White postures as a technocrat, his disdain for climate science is clear. He champions speculative geoengineering projects that gamble with Earth’s climate systems while ignoring urgent carbon reduction efforts. His dismissal of scientific consensus fosters public doubt and stalls meaningful climate action.
White’s true power lies in bureaucratic sabotage. By embedding loyalists into regulatory agencies, he obstructs environmental reviews, benefiting corporate polluters. His attacks on renewable energy, framed as “energy independence,” polarize public discourse and delay the transition to sustainability.
Ultimately, White’s tenure accelerates environmental degradation for short-term profit, threatening the planet’s future. Recognizing and resisting this trajectory is critical to preserving a livable world.
Title: When the Rain Stopped: A Personal Reckoning with Climate Change
Growing up in northern Nigeria, the rains were a promise. They were a song sung by the wind before the sky split open, drenching the red earth and breathing life into our fields. My father would watch the horizon with a calm certainty, knowing that no matter how scorching the sun had been, the rains would come. They always did.
Until they didn’t.
It started gradually, like a whisper that no one wanted to hear. One year, the rains came late. The next, they barely came at all. Our fields, once lush and green, turned brown and brittle. The yam vines struggled to climb, and the millet stalks bowed low as if apologizing for their weakness. My father, once confident in his knowledge of the land, now stared at the empty sky, his face etched with worry.
At first, we told ourselves it was just an odd year — an anomaly that would soon correct itself. But when the next rainy season came and went with barely a drizzle, the village grew anxious. Elders gathered under the old baobab tree, debating what could have gone wrong. They consulted traditional diviners, offered sacrifices to appease the spirits, and held prayers in the mosque, hoping to bring back the rain.
I remember asking my father one evening, “Why won’t the rains come?” He didn’t answer at first, just traced lines in the dust with his foot. “The world is changing,” he finally said. “The land doesn’t know us anymore.”
It wasn’t just our family. The entire community was affected. Wells that once gushed with clear, cool water ran dry. The livestock grew thin and restless, their ribs visible beneath dull coats. Neighbors began selling their cattle at desperate prices or migrating to cities in search of work. Those who stayed whispered about curses and angry spirits. No one wanted to face the truth: that the climate itself was shifting beyond our control.
My mother tried to keep hope alive by planting smaller gardens closer to the house, using what little water we could spare. She grew leafy greens and groundnuts, insisting that even in hardship, we should not give up. “The land will remember us,” she would say, tending to the parched soil with her bare hands. “We just have to remind it who we are.”
One evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, I sat with my grandmother by the cooking fire. She told me stories from her youth — tales of endless rains that filled the rivers to the brim and made the fields bloom like a paradise. She spoke of how the women would gather by the riverbank, washing clothes and singing while their children splashed in the shallows. I could barely imagine it. The riverbed was nothing but cracked earth now, littered with dry leaves and forgotten dreams.
Despite the struggle, life went on. We adapted in small ways, planting drought-resistant crops like sorghum and cowpea. Women formed cooperatives to buy water tanks and shared what they could. Children learned to carry water from distant wells, their small hands chafed and blistered from the effort. My father built makeshift canals to catch whatever rain might come, but more often than not, they sat empty, baking in the sun.
When I left for university, I carried the weight of those parched fields with me. I studied environmental science, hoping to find answers, but the deeper I dug, the more helpless I felt. Industrial emissions, deforestation, global warming — problems too vast for one person or one village to solve. Yet, I couldn’t forget my father’s words: The land doesn’t know us anymore.
At school, I met students from other parts of the country, and we shared stories of our struggles with climate change. Some spoke of coastal erosion swallowing up entire villages, while others described the harm caused by desertification creeping steadily southward. It was then I realized that we were not alone in this fight — that the forces reshaping our lives were larger than anything we could comprehend.
One holiday, I went back to my village. The fields were barren, but the community was still resilient. They had formed a cooperative, experimenting with drought-resistant crops and learning water conservation techniques. It wasn’t enough to reverse the damage, but it was something — a stubborn refusal to give in. My father’s hands were rough from digging irrigation ditches, and despite the exhaustion, there was a flicker of hope in his eyes.
One day, as we worked together to clear debris from a dried-up streambed, he spoke with a kind of quiet resolve. “We cannot make the rains come,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow. “But we can prepare for them when they do. We can’t sit idle, waiting. We have to keep moving forward, even when it feels hopeless.”
His words struck a chord in me. Back at university, I joined a group of students advocating for sustainable agriculture and climate adaptation in rural communities. We organized workshops and brought experts to discuss ways to maximize water efficiency and reduce soil degradation. I shared stories from my village, using my family’s experience as a lens through which to understand the broader crisis.
I learned that while policy changes and international agreements were crucial, they often felt distant from the people most affected. Grassroots initiatives — the simple, practical solutions forged by necessity — made a more immediate difference. I spoke about how my mother had started planting groundnuts closer to the house, and how neighbors had pooled resources to buy water tanks. It wasn’t grand or revolutionary, but it was something tangible and real.
Eventually, I started writing about our experiences, weaving stories of struggle and resilience with research on climate adaptation. One of my essays caught the attention of a local NGO, and they reached out to support our community with seeds for drought-resistant crops and training on water management. The help was small but meaningful — a spark of hope amid the uncertainty.
Today, I still wrestle with guilt and frustration, knowing that those who bear the brunt of climate change are often the least responsible for causing it. Wealthy nations continue to emit carbon at unprecedented rates while communities like mine pay the price. Yet, despite the anger, I hold on to the spirit of my village, refusing to let despair win. We are not just victims of a changing world; we are survivors, learning to bend without breaking.
As I work alongside my community to build more resilient systems, I realize that true resilience is not just about adapting to change — it’s about preserving the dignity and spirit that make us who we are. My father still watches the horizon, but now his gaze carries a deeper resolve. He no longer waits for the rains as a matter of faith; he prepares for them with the certainty that, one day, they will return.
And maybe, just maybe, the rains will remember us someday.
Chris White: Trump’s Energy Secretary Pick
Chris White’s appointment as energy secretary represents a calculated shift toward environmental degradation. Behind his polished image lies a network of corporatism and corruption, eroding ecological safeguards to benefit powerful fossil fuel interests.
White’s career is deeply tied to the fossil fuel industry, notably through his tenure at BlackHydra Energy, a multinational linked to global environmental destruction. His policies promote deregulation disguised as economic growth, enabling unchecked resource extraction and dismantling of green initiatives like methane emission standards. Token gestures like subsidizing “clean coal” distract from his broader agenda.
Though White postures as a technocrat, his disdain for climate science is clear. He champions speculative geoengineering projects that gamble with Earth’s climate systems while ignoring urgent carbon reduction efforts. His dismissal of scientific consensus fosters public doubt and stalls meaningful climate action.
White’s true power lies in bureaucratic sabotage. By embedding loyalists into regulatory agencies, he obstructs environmental reviews, benefiting corporate polluters. His attacks on renewable energy, framed as “energy independence,” polarize public discourse and delay the transition to sustainability.
Ultimately, White’s tenure accelerates environmental degradation for short-term profit, threatening the planet’s future. Recognizing and resisting this trajectory is critical to preserving a livable world.
GQ