“
T
o be honest, i’m worried,” says daouda
Gueye. “The future is almost black. To
be an optimist, you have to see what’s
next. And right now we can’t see any-
thing. Everything is dark.” He shrugs.
“We’re truly cornered.”
We are standing in a field just outside Bargny, a bus-
tling seaside town of 70,000 people some 30 kilometers
southeast of Dakar, Senegal’s capital. For decades, Bargny
has suffered from severe industrial pollution. The town
hosts a hulking cement factory—one of the largest in WestAfrica—that has flecked Bargny with toxic dust since 1984.
Over the past 10 years, two other threats have emerged.
A mere 100 meters east of where Gueye and I stand, a
new coal-fired power plant—Senegal’s first, in operation
since last fall—waffles in the afternoon heat. Mounds of
coal lie at the base of its three chutes, which slope up to-
ward the red-and-gray-striped chimney. The chimney’s
thin shadow points, like a stern finger, to the southeast,
where rising sea levels and storm surges caused by cli-
mate change exact a devastating toll.
Worse, the two threats are linked. The power plant