This is a post that I’ve been sitting on for a long time now. I started writing it back when I was forced to leave my site due to Rift Valley Fever back in October 2025. Jane Goodall had just died so I had been thinking a lot about the climate and conservation. As I reflected, I realized that many of the problems that I see in the Senegal River Valley mirror the problems that the southwestern United States faces or will face in the future. Since I wrote this so long ago some of the “Now’s” are not as “Now” as they used to be but I feel that all of the information is still very relevant.

Rising temperatures, precious little rain, flash floods, scouring sandstorms. These are the realities of living in the desert, realities that have been the norm for what feels like my entire life. I’ve always lived in deserts; I was born in the Mohave Desert, I grew up in the Sonoran Desert, and now I live right on the border between the Sahel region and the Sahara Desert. Deserts have, of course, always been hot and dry, that’s what makes a desert a desert but I have increasingly come to realize that the deserts that I have experienced are not what they used to be. You don’t have to look that hard to find stories about what these environments were like in the not so distant past. Grass that brushed the knees of horseback riders in New Mexico, elephants holding back the Sahara by fertilizing and tilling a relatively thin strip of green, rivers crisscrossing Tucson.

In the southwestern United states as in Senegal the loss of biodiversity and the slow, creeping destruction of the ecosystems here are starkly evident. If they are not expressly visible, they are recorded in the collective memory of the people who see the difference between the land now and the land that they grew up on. Those who have not seen the land change within their lifetimes experience it through the displacement and hardship they face in the here and now. When I came to Senegal, I didn’t expect the environment to feel so familiar, but after over a year and a half I can’t help but see the similarities.

Here in Senegal, I see and feel the direct and noticeable affects of climate change. Shifting seasons, higher temperatures, infrequent rain, and flooding cause crops to fail, new and existing diseases to run rampant, and turn once vibrant areas into barren sand. Water pollution from cities and pesticides or fertilizer in the fields turn the life-giving waters of the rivers into sources of poison and disease. Air pollution from vehicle exhaust and burnt trash darkens the skies around larger cities and weakens people’s lungs throughout the region. Trash that isn’t burned piles up on the edges of cities and in dumping grounds in the forests, killing animals looking for their next meal and releasing invisible toxins into the soil.

Back at home, Tucson was once a city that sat at the confluence of two small rivers. The monsoons used to turn the area into a floodplain, spreading water and bringing life to the desert, not unlike the process that supports life in the river valley in which I currently live. Now, as a result of years of pumping to support mining, industrialized agriculture, and the growing population of Tucson, the water table has dropped. It has dropped so low that the rivers now only run intermittently during the monsoon season, when the system of canals and washes throughout the city works to prevent flooding by diverting as much water as possible into the dry riverbeds. Presently, water in Tucson is being threatened again by the construction of an AI data center for Amazon on the outskirts of town, which would require massive amounts of water (and electricity), so much so that the city and county would have to construct completely new infrastructure to supply the data center with the vast quantity of resources it needs. On top of that, the water used at the facility would become unusable for any other purpose, having become contaminated with toxic substances. That’s already a lot, and I haven’t even mentioned the increased emissions that the vast energy use of such a data center would engender.

Beyond the issues that Tucson is facing, the United States is currently at the whims of a federal government that seems to be diametrically opposed to things like environmentalism and human development at home and abroad. Very prominent in my mind are the cuts that DOGE made to many agencies within the government, especially those that led to the complete destruction of USAID, stopping not only the agency’s important humanitarian work, but also the programs that contributed directly and indirectly to protecting ecosystems around the world. The Peace Corps also experienced (and continues to experience) some changes. We now have to watch the language that we use when referring to climate change, the environment, and even gender. Our posts’ capacities to support volunteers in our service are also being reduced, as the budget is squeezed, and staff are pushed out. I feel like now is a good time to remind everyone that the opinions that I express on this website are my own and in no way reflect the stances of the United States Government, Peace Corps as a whole, or Peace Corps Senegal.

The challenges that we face are almost immeasurably large and are interconnected in ways that make it all very difficult to untangle. None of these problems exists on its own, and none of them has a simple or clear solution. It is also incredibly important to note that our environmental issues are linked to problems within our society beyond just the environment. Injustice, racism, corporate greed, wealth inequality, and so much more all touch the environment. The vastness of it all can make it feel useless to try to address any one of these problems, let alone the numerous others that I have not mentioned. How is one person supposed to make any kind of impact, given how big, how difficult to perceive, and how ingrained into the systems of our current society they are? But I would argue that such a way of thinking is defeatist and doesn’t necessarily even reflect the reality of our situation. If you actually look, there are bright spots everywhere, throughout the US and around the world.

Back in Tucson, the data center that I mentioned continues to face massive opposition. During the summer of 2025, the development company that is trying to build said data center was attempting to establish an agreement with the city to annex the land where it would be built. This was a key milestone for the data center’s construction, so much so that the company had previously said that without the city’s compliance, the development of the data center would not move forward. When Tucsonans found out about this, they turned out in droves to oppose the city’s annexation of the land. City council meetings were packed, records were broken, and average citizens spoke for hours in front of the council to voice their opposition. Ultimately, to their credit, the mayor and city council listened and voted against annexing the land for the data center, bringing its development to a grinding halt.

The fight is, unfortunately, not over. The development company has moved forward without the cooperation of the city. Pima County had already agreed to the development plan, so while slowed, the construction of the data center has not been stopped completely. Once again, people are turning out to voice their dissent, this time before the Pima County Board of Supervisors and the Arizona Corporation Commission. This fight is still ongoing, but the fact that the people won before means that they can win again. AI and its wanton destruction of the environment, degradation of information, and theft of intellectual property are not as “inevitable” as many have said, especially when communities come together in opposition.

Around the world, the degradation of ecosystems is being reversed with and without human intervention. Here in Senegal, an Elephant was spotted for the first time in six years in one of its national parks. This Elephant returned on its own. When given the chance, ecosystems can bounce back even without coaxing from people.

In Europe, large herbivores are being reintroduced to areas where they have not been seen for upwards of 400 years. In the past, large bovids called Aurochs were widespread across Europe. They, like their counterparts around the world (think Bison), were ecosystem engineers and a keystone species before they were hunted to extinction. Now, scientists have selectively bred a type of cow they’re calling the Tauros and have successfully introduced them into parts of Denmark, paving the way for the ecosystem there to return to something similar to what it was before so many species were driven to the brink of extinction (if not outright extinct). Side note: Imagine5, the magazine that the Aurochs article was written for is an excellent source of good climate news.

Again, back in the United States, so many people are working towards similar goals. One incredible example is the Alveus Sanctuary in Texas, which monetizes modern pastimes and interests, primarily through their Twitch streams, to fund a sanctuary for wild animals that cannot be returned to their native habitats for one reason or another. At the same time, they educate their views about issues relating to the animal tenants of their sanctuary, such as the myriad problems in factory farming and the harms of the exotic pet trade. Now they have laid out plans for a massive expansion to their sanctuary, not only allowing them to care for more animals but to establish a breeding program for two species of endangered wolves in the United States that will contribute to the reintroduction of these species around the US.

I don’t entirely know why I decided to write this out. The majority of the people that will likely read this probably already understand the gravity of our situation and likely agree that we need to do something about it. I want to emphasize to any one that reads this though, the “something” we do cannot be and will never be, the complete removal of humans from the web of nature. We are a part of our ecosystem, we always have been. There is no “man vs nature.” We are a part of nature and nature always wins. We have one climate, one world, one health.

This is current me again. I’m still not super sure why I felt the need to write this, I think it’s just on my mind often. I hope some of you can get something out of this post. At the very least, I’ll have gotten my thoughts out of my head an onto this page. If there is anything to take away from this, it’s that climate change is not inevitable and there are a lot of people trying very hard to fix things. There are things that can be done to make things better, that in and of itself gives me hope and inspires me to do what I can. Things might get worse first, but I know that eventually they will get better and maybe someday we’ll even see fireflies in downtown Tucson.