There are 3.3 - 3.6 billion people who live in hotspots of high vulnerability to climate change.
This is one of those places.
We are in the early stages of mass migration.
We are completely unprepared for what is coming.
#ClimateCrisis #ClimateMigration
Droughts, floods and economic ...
It feels to me like "build more housing" can't be the answer. You almost might as well say "make more land". It's not a durable solution. And it doesn't address the many other aspects of society that need to be addressed. Jobs food commerce in general, schools, the nature and flow of community itself.
A favorite quote comes to mind.
"Better implies different."
--Amar Bose, at an MIT Enterprise Forum event
(He was trying to explain to sales people at stores that would sell Bose speakers why they had to make changes in how they set them up. "Couldn't they just do what they'd always done?" The people would ask. They were used to that and did not want to change. He was trying to explain succinctly why you can't just radically improve something and leave it the same at the same time. So he, explained, that slogan had emerged.)
Surely higher population density at some point means using existing resources differently. I'm not pushing an agenda here, but I am observing that higher density feels less compatible within every person for themselves and traditional-ownership / rent-taking-for-profit model. Surely that brings a 2-tiered citizenship and breeds discontent/danger as inequality simmers.
In computer science, we talk about building systems that scale, planning for higher traffic. This could really be done in a system that did not plan for scale without the architecting the system entirely, and I've even seen some of pine that every factor of 10 in scale requires a redesign.
Sometimes the architectural plan is indeed to just add servers, but that has to be planned in, and there has to be a source of servers, and the system architecture has to be structured such that in the new model, all the necessary flows will happen correctly and resources won't be cut off from each other or too hard to access or too expensive.
"Build more housing." does not sound like the kind of answer I could give in a job interview and expect to be hired, with the hiring manager saying "this person has clearly demonstrated their understanding of operating at scale". The answer is not of a shape that seems right to me, nor does it offer sufficient detail.
A lot of capitalism seems to operate on a theory that you just twist some knobs and everything will just happen right without coordination. I think this is less and less true as either populations grow larger or resources grow smaller or resources become more stressed.
I did not write the accompanying article specifically to address this issue, and yet I feel like it says some important additional things I might say here if I were to ramble on. It is not a complete discussion of scale, but more discussion of why I don't think the traditional ways of thinking about just turning a few knobs is likely to keep working.
Losing Ground in the Environment
https://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2019/09/losing-ground-in-environment.html
It also just not addressed the issue of urgency, and the way in which urgency materially changes the set of usable solutions. I did try to address that issue here:
The Politics of Delay
https://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-politics-of-delay.html
https://www.europesays.com/1784815/ California Wildfires Are A Wake-Up Call For Climate Change Adaptation #adaptation #BondYields #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateMigration #CommodityPrices #ElectricalGrids #GlobalWarming #hydropower #resilience
"Al Jazeera examines the 359 million weather-related displacements recorded worldwide since 2008.
Out of the 359 million weather-related global #displacements recorded since 2008, nearly 80 percent were from the Asia and Asia Pacific regions, accounting for about 106 and 171 million respectively."
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/22/mapping-the-impact-of-climate-change-on-global-displacement
#ClimateMigration
Houston Public Media: Nearly half of Houstonians considered leaving, new poll finds, mainly due to weather
The survey, conducted in Fall 2024, found that 48% of people considered moving out of the Houston area. Of that, 70% said weather is a reason. Pollsters believe Hurricane Beryl and its aftereffects is a big reason why.
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/houston/2024/11/14/506137/houston-move-away-weather-hurricanes-2024-survey/ #climatemigration #climate #TXwx #immigration #ClimateEmergency #hurricanes #HurricaneBeryl
NYT Interactive | The Great Climate Migration Has Begun https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/23/magazine/climate-migration.html #ClimateMigration
This week many of Helene’s victims have simply been cut off, revealing the dangerous gaps left by broken infrastructure, and a mistaken belief that many people can take care of themselves. #ClimateMigration
Another reality:
Who Will Care for Americans Left Behind by #ClimateMigration?
"As people move away from flooding and heat, new research suggests that those who remain will be older, poorer and more vulnerable."
https://www.propublica.org/article/climate-change-migration-hurricane-helene
Discussion of the problem with US asylum system: if your home is destroyed due to natural disaster, it's not an accepted reason for gaining asylum. (only if, subsequently, your town is taken over by a gang that wants you dead) #ClimateEmergency #ClimateMigration #disasters
![There is no climate asylum in the U.S. When I talk to people who have been displaced by climate, like a hurricane, what they have to do is show persecution. It doesn’t matter if your house was destroyed or that you lost your job or livelihood. If someone’s house was destroyed by a hurricane, then [for example] a gang has to have taken over their neighborhood and they would have to feel threatened by that gang to do an asylum claim. This is something that needs to change. We’re looking at a world of mass displacement.](https://media2.ai6yr.org/media_attachments/files/113/152/945/653/144/487/original/5472f0dae5f49371.png "There is no climate asylum in the U.S. When I talk to people who have been displaced by climate, like a hurricane, what they have to do is show persecution. It doesn’t matter if your house was destroyed or that you lost your job or livelihood. If someone’s house was destroyed by a hurricane, then [for example] a gang has to have taken over their neighborhood and they would have to feel threatened by that gang to do an asylum claim. This is something that needs to change. We’re looking at a world of mass displacement.")
@bicmay - The #wildfires in the US West are horrifying. I’m surprised we’re not seeing more #climatemigration to the East Coast.
At some point we have to confront the fact that overpopulation is an underlying driver of immigration issues.
Those most angry about this immigration problem are also the chief advocates of eliminating family planning worldwide.
And many are fleeing oppressive conditions of inequality and poverty elsewhere, the kind of harsh world the US seeks to import to the US.
Not to mention some of it is, and increasingly will be climate migration, again as those demanding action are also pushing for cheap oil and plentiful drilling, accelerating a crisis that will not just drive more climate migration but ultimately, probably very soon, lead to civilization collapse.
We treat these issues in politics as a la carte, items we regularly poll our populace about the priority of, as if they were separable, not locked together in webs of accelerative causality, a societal death spiral where we are "shocked, shocked" to find there's gambling going on, gambling with all of our lives.
https://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2019/09/losing-ground-in-environment.html
summer's hottest days
seek asylum here in spring
from fresh Hell beyond
#Republicans in #Arizona to Add #Immigration Measure to #Ballot in Nov
The measure would make unlawfully entering AZ from #Mexico a #state #crime. The #legislators’ proposal would give #local #police officers the #power to #arrest & #jail *migrants* & would allow state judges to #deport people.
#law #Federal #ClimateMigration
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/04/us/arizona-immigration-law.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&u2g=c&pvid=0D989B78-77C1-4139-B60D-D9801D2C8264&sgrp=c-cb
#POTUS #Biden is expected to sign an executive order on Tuesday allowing him to temporarily seal the #UnitedStates #border with #Mexico to migrants when crossings surge, a move that would suspend longtime protections for #asylum seekers in the #UnitedStates.
#law #Immigration #ClimateMigration #ClimateChange
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/03/us/politics/biden-immigration-asylum-order.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&u2g=c&pvid=E8A3F2D3-4A21-4554-8914-B2B9246E193C&sgrp=c-cb
Hmm. I'm no expert, just a random person doing back-of-the-envelope calculations. But this seems an overly-abbreviated, overly-optimistic summary.
That it talks about food price spikes, etc. cascading around at 3C is ridiculous. That's happening already now.
By even 2C, if not sooner, we should expect to significant famines affecting first-world countries. We're ALREADY pushing the limits of what temperature ranges our key food crops can grow in. I'm expecting it within the next 3 years, and not bullish about it being on the long side of that.
Even at present, we're seeing people pushing the borders of wet bulb limits. That it will take until 2.7C to see 2B people outside of the limit will surprise me. I bet we'll see that a lot sooner, too. It's not like it has to happen every day. It has to stay below that line every single day to keep people alive. Air conditioning is a luxury many in the world don't have, and a lot of the poorest are in the first areas to be affected.
This goes back to my recent essay on what is conservative to speak of [1], but I don't see it as conservative to associate these particular effects with these particular temperatures. They seem like unsupported radical optimism, and it seems to me that the damage that can be done by choosing these is far larger than appreciated.
I don't even see global temperatures as tied to cities being submerged. Heating has been worst at the poles, and it seems likely that we could see a lot of sea level rise sooner.
I fear that decision-makers will read these capsule descriptions and say "we can live with this" as if these were promises that these particular ill effects won't come until the indicated temperature, which someone elsewhere is probably busy irresponsibly claiming will be a while.
#climate #ClimateCollapse #ClimateRisk #ClimateCrisis #journalism #FoodSecurity #ClimateMigration
[1] On what is "conservative" for Climate scientists to speak of: https://climatejustice.social/@kentpitman/112405726688571422
Anchovies and sardines appear to have shifted from the Mediterranean to Ireland due to rising sea surface temperatures. https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/climate-in-uncharted-waters-as-hundreds-of-millions-of-anchovies-and-sardines-arrive-off-irish-coast/a1525456124.html #SSTs #climate #ocean #fish #climatemigration
"If Lustgarten and the scientists he cites are right, tens of millions of Americans, or more, will pack up and move to them. If #ClimateMigration on that scale comes to pass, it will dwarf the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s.
Lustgarten’s central argument is that #HomeInsurance companies and government subsidies are perversely masking risks in threatened areas, making migration overdue."
