EARLIER this year, geologists from Boston University announced that they had discovered a vast underground lake in western Sudan’s troubled Darfur region. By helping to reverse the critical shortage of fresh water in the region, the geologists and many other commentators said, the lake will ease the area’s carnage and suffering.
That prediction is part of a seemingly solid consensus that resource shortages brought on by climate change cause global conflict, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. In , for example, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon argued that the conflict in Darfur began when…
