Climate Migrants: Spreading the Fire of Action
Climate Migrants: Spreading the Fire of Action
The world is rapidly heating. Roughly 97% of scientists agree this phenomena to be anthropogenic, or caused by human behavior, and due to the emissions of greenhouse gasses which have accompanied industrialization from its inception, and only increased as other countries developed and the demand for energy products and services grew exponentially. The reality that these statements of fact are, in this country, partisan, is a sad indicator of our current state of affairs.
So what does this mean? What impact will this have on people in the world?
First off, these impacts have already begun. The last five years have been the hottest on record, and have only increased as time has gone forward. This was accompanied by fires, droughts, heatwaves, floods, hurricanes, and a seeming laundry list of ways that the climate system has started to respond to the added pressure of more greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, and a hotter world. In addition, there is, as many point out, the start of the next mass extinction of wildlife. One-hundred and fifty to 200 species go extinct every day due to human activity. This is 1,000 times the normal rate. The fact that this is all caused by a single species is both remarkable and shocking. At no time in human history have we faced a greater ecological threat, or posed more of one as a species.
What this means, now and in the future, for people on the ground, is hard to determine completely, but some things can be predicted and are already occurring. Droughts have led farmers to abandon the areas they used to work, as their land proved no longer viable. They move to cities, or to the Global North. The same is true for hurricane victims. These two trends will only get worse as the planet continues to heat. Further, there is conflict over scarce resources, with fresh water becoming increasingly rare. This again fuels mass migration and displacement. According to climate activist and author Naomi Klein, “7 million people in the first 6 months of 2019 have been forced to move because of floods, droughts, disasters, many of them linked to the climate crisis.”
Countries in the developed Northern Hemisphere have been less severely impacted, ecologically and financially, than those in the Global South, and this trend will continue. What the Northern countries have experienced within the last few years is an influx of migrants escaping either economic situations, direct violence, or ecosystems that can no longer support them. The response has rarely been to welcome these migrants with open arms, nor to even abide by the laws of the international community onto which all countries have signed. Often the countries receiving these migrants see an uptick in xenophobia, far-right populist leaders, draconian immigration policies, and anti-immigrant rhetoric the likes of which has not been seen since the run up to WWII. We are witnessing the erosion of international agreements, and increasing difficulty in working collaboratively, across national and international party lines.
Despite this, there is cause for hope. In the US, states and companies are taking up the call to combat the worst aspects of energy use and the climate crisis. Germany has tried to welcome more migrants than many other Northern European Countries. And countries where migrants first make landfall, such as Mexico, Turkey, Italy, and Greece, are increasingly reaching out to others, whether they be international organizations or member states of the UN to offer support for a wave of new people.
Further, civil society is rapidly waking up to the reality of a future that includes a new class of migrant, namely ‘climate migrants’, which can cover many of the root causes previously mentioned, if not more. A younger generation has taken up the call for intergenerational equity, and inter-geographical fairness (or rather unfairness), in terms of both claiming responsibility for, and attempting to ameliorate, the problem of the climate crisis. Recently, on September 20th, 2019, more than 4 million people demonstrated and protested for change on this issue across every continent in the world. The desire for action is there and only growing louder and more persistent.
So what can we do, as individuals, against such an entrenched and systemic issue? The same thing that every other group of people facing a major issue change have: organize, advocate, educate, love, express ourselves and our stories, communicate, spread the message, and hold leaders accountable. We live in a vital age that will set the stage for the future of not just humanity, but all life on this planet. While billionaires seek escape holes on other planets, people right here on this one suffer daily, and this will only increase. We have some tools to deal with this, and more will be needed. The first step is like any other: take action, in any way you can. It may seem small, but, as we’ve seen ecologically, when the conditions are right, fires can spread rapidly.
References:
[1] “Environmental Migrant.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, September 23, 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_migrant.
[2] “Campaigns: Climate.” Environmental Justice Foundation. EJF, September 30, 2019. https://ejfoundation.org/what-we-do/climate.
[3] “IPCC.” Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The United Nations, September 30, 2019. https://www.ipcc.ch/
[4] “UNHCR.” United Nations Refugee Agency. The United Nations, September 30, 2019. https://www.unhcr.org/.