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The Forum > Article Comments > Climate refugees > Comments

Climate refugees : Comments

By Mike Pope, published 15/11/2011

It's not if but when climate change refugees arrive, so we need to decide how to deal with them.

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Two things to help deal with the climate refugee crisis (that is actually an overpopulation crisis since there are too many people to be sustained by some nations under changed climatic and energy availability conditions):

1) Stop increasing our population now so that we will be more able to cope with the refugees when they arrive.

2) Accept the refugees but scuttle any and all boats/ships that bring them here - so that they cannot return to bring more. This would also make it less profitable for people smugglers to conduct this business. There are far, far fewer ocean-going boats than people in this world....
Posted by michael_in_adelaide, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 8:40:13 AM
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The boundaries separating “climate refugee”, “economic refugee”, “refugee from persecution” are arbitrary. They might all be called “economic”, because those remaining behind, without the resources to seek refuge elsewhere, could be the most desperate of all.
Perhaps there is another category - refugees from population pressure. That underlies each and every one of the problems outlined in the article. Its effect has been felt from time to time for thousands of years in many communities; just as it does now in Somalia, Tuvalu, the Middle East, -- and Australia for our preferred lifestyles.
Now, each and every one of the world’s nations are full to capacity for the way they would like to live. What is worse, they are degrading their soils, water, and environmental capacity in order to do so - thereby diminishing these fundamental resources for their descendants. And they have retained the habit of tossing their garbage over the fence towards their neighbours. Unfortunately, now with seven billion all doing the same at once, it is raising a stink in the planet; especially in its atmosphere.
We live in interesting times; and - for the generations to follow - very much more so. If Homo sapiens had the desire, and the wit, to replace its fetish for cancerous growth by a stable compatibility with its environment - the “environmental refugees” problem could, possibly, be overcome.
Posted by colinsett, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 9:11:05 AM
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Our unsustainable social economic environmental model is the underlying problem. An idea I think has merit because of its sound triple bottom line foundations is to offer asylum seekers 15hrs/wk work on public 'eco' housing & gardens in exchange for food, accommodation & a dollar adjustment up to the value of unemployment benefits (see http://bit.ly/fAWRjc)
Posted by landrights4all, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 9:26:01 AM
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If you're so convinced the sea is going to rise by 2m (which not even the IPCC says will happen), sell me your coastal property at a knock down price. If you're right, I'll lose my money. If I'm right, I'll clean up.

Or are you too worried about spending other people's money?
Posted by DavidL, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 10:07:00 AM
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50 million were predicted by the IPCC to have arrived by 2010. Didint happen. The whole idea that a 0.7 degree temp rise would cause 50 million people to move is simply arrant nonsense.

This is simply a way the UN can convince the developed world to take in any refugee who comes knocking on the door. Its part of the UN desire for a borderless, one world, share the prosperity policy to make it easier for them, an unelected body of elite, to rule the globe.
Posted by Atman, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 10:14:38 AM
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Is it something in their training?

There must be some reason that economists are the most likely people to fall for a good con job.

Perhaps it's because their discipline is mostly smoke & mirrors that they have to believe the smoke & mirrors of others.

But Mike goes further, & embellishes the rose beyond belief. 2 meters sea level rise, what a joke. I guess economists & green house "scientists" do have this trait in common. If it doesn't sound frightening enough, spice it up. Perhaps our unies are becoming spice factories!

Perhaps someone should inform him that 90% of atolls are growing, including even the Maldives. Yes that's right Mike, the coral keeps depositing limestone, & the waves wash it up onto the beach. A bit simplistic perhaps, but people who want to publish this stuff should do a little research, & get a few facts, before pontificating.

With the amount of use they are not, perhaps we should keep our economists in glass cases, to be brought out when we need some figures added.

What, they can't add up either. God help us.
Posted by Hasbeen, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 10:27:23 AM
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I've been watching a sandbank for ten years now. At first there were about two or three mangroves sticking up but submerged at high tide. Now the building of an island is almost complete. Even at the highest of tides the mangroves are still above water & a lot of mud & sand has built up. The sea has been rising for several thousand years now since the last ice age. I found coral some 20 metres above high tide embedded in the ground. This indicates that we've had higher sea levels than what's predicted for the next 100 years. Perhaps the crowd who built the pyramids & carved out the nasca plains created so much pollution hence this high sea levels. It's called evolution, nothing ever stays the same unlike academic mentality.
Posted by individual, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 10:42:32 AM
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every winter North Queensland and the top end of Western Australia receive many refugees from the Southern States. Now that airfares are cheap many refugees visit Bali and like Island during the cold months. When are the jokers going to wake up that climate has and always will change. Using this fact for political causes has resulted in us having an idioitc tax. Please don't burden us with more political rubbish.
Posted by runner, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 10:57:09 AM
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2m increase inevitable this century.... BBBBWWWWHAHAHAHAH!

Mike, mate, they had to abandon all those forecasts because they realised that the big ice sheets just don't break up that quickly.. not even at the end of the last ice age, which was a massive change. Even James Hanson has basicaly backed down.. the best they could do was about 0.8 metres for the century I think.. at least that's sort of the number must planners in Aus are using.

a glance at the satellite date compiled by the Uni of Colorado
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ shows that the increase in sea levels has been running at 3.2 mm a year (0.32 metres over a century - or about a foot) since the early 1990s. Might be a bit below average in recent years but nothing significant..

Won't get many climate refugess on those numbers..
Posted by Curmudgeon, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 11:07:18 AM
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I dunno about the 2m sea-level rise, but does anyone else find it a bit bizarre that DavidL seems to think that anyone who mentions it owns coastal property? Property that he wants to buy for cheap of course.
Weird.
Posted by Bugsy, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 12:27:20 PM
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Hasbeen and Curmodgeon probably know that sea level rises because land based ice, particularly at the poles, melts quicker than it is replenished. But it does not melt at the same rate. Each year it melts at an increasing rate so that, over time. sea level rises at an increasing rate.

In 2000, land based ice loss from Greenland was about 100 gigatonnes a year and from West Antarctica, around 60 gigatonnes per annum. By 2010 the rate of loss from Greenland had increased to 300 gigatonnes and from West Antarctica, over 160 gigatonnes per annum. In both cases loss was accelerating.

IPCC estimates of sea level rise do not take account of the contribution of polar ice loss, which is why they are low. However satellite data is now available and supports the view of Dr Hansen that global warming will cause polar ice loss to double each decade throughout this century. If that prediction is sustained, by 2100 sea level will have risen not by 2 metres but by 4 metres.

Our hope should be that polar ice loss slows down and that Dr Hansen is proven wrong but that is not happening.

Now, we measure sea level rise in milimetres/annum but within 30 years it is likely to be measured in centimeters/annum. By then it will be too late to worry about the effects of sea level rise and extreme weather events on densely populated countries to our north. Their coastal regions face devastation (as do some of ours) and the effect will cause mass movement of populations in search of the essentials of life.

Whether that causes people to move en-mass to our shores is a different matter. However if violence in places like Sri Lanka and Afghanistan is any guide, we should be concerned.
Posted by Agnostic of Mittagong, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 12:47:09 PM
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50 million climate refugees? Name one.

Besides, aren't they all supposed to be dead by 2012?

http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2007/01/08/01291.html
Posted by Jon J, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 1:07:59 PM
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Runner should be able to tell us if there is any truth in that subject. Some islands are in trouble now. It is not only ice melt, it is the increase in tide levels, which magnify the sea levels. If the sea level has risen 5 cm, the tidal wash, level will have covered many more acres.
It is as if storm surges were present without the storm.
Posted by 579, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 1:31:33 PM
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Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't sea levels risen by a massive two inches* over the last sixty years ? Around the world's coastlines, that's a fair bit of land swallowed up by the waves, perhaps a couple of feet inland, maybe thousands of square kilometres in all, so how many people have had to flee to higher ground as the sea swept in on them, over that time ?

On the premises that (a) nobody anywhere will do anything, and (b) the exponential rate of increase in sea-level rise is incredibly high, two inches in the last sixty years but a couple of feet in the next sixty years, is it possible that - before those of us living in that two-feet zone are drowned - we gradually move everything up two feet ? Maybe fifty or sixty feet further inland ? A foot a year ?

Of course, if governments do something over the next forty or fifty years, like switch to renewables, then maybe we can hold back the Flood, and keep it down to only one vertical foot or less, or thirty horizontal feet inland instead of sixty feet. This would probably save millions of lives, of all of those people living in that upper thirty-feet zone, over the next sixty years, as the raging sea sweeps in on them unawares, at half a foot per year.

Joe

* Sorry, I'm an old person, I find it hard to convert proper measurement into metric. As well, I find it hard to go along with too much bullsh!t, life's too short.
Posted by Loudmouth, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 2:03:33 PM
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579,
I suggest you read John J's link. If the 'science'can change so quickly you can be pretty comfortable in the knowledge that it is fraudulent. Scientist like you and me have an adamic nature to you know
Posted by runner, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 2:18:45 PM
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Many people forfeited their Education to too many Joints eg; they can't identify Science Fiction even when they write it themselves.
Posted by Garum Masala, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 2:36:34 PM
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Agnostic of Mittagong

while I admire your efforts to keep this scare story going the figures you cite are basically meaningless - I'm not saying that they trivial, I'm saying they mean nothing to most readers. In any case, I have seen quite a few, different estimates of ice loss from those bodies you mentioned, and most of them have been contradictory.

But none of those estimates matter a jot, as I noted in the original post, if the losses from ice sheets are excessive they just aren't showing up in the real time figures on sea level heights. To repeat my reference in the earlier post, you can always look at the University of colorado satellite tracking service and see if you can detect any change in the rate of sea level change. Its been a steady 3.1 mm a year since the early 1990s, or basically very little.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
When the measured rate of increase goes above the straight line you see on the graph then we'll talk about scare stories. At the moment its below.
Posted by Curmudgeon, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 4:31:07 PM
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So why do the people of, say low lying Bangladesh have to come here instead of Nepal, or Mongolia?
Send them to higher ground on their own continent.
Oh but wait, the Mongolians and Nepalese wouldn't like that, they'd drive the "refugees" straight back to where they came from.
The first post in this thread nailed the motivation behind the article and the whole refugee business model, racial replacement of White populations.
Newsflash Michael, it's illegal under international law to limit birthrates and replace one population with another, it's called genocide.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 4:47:29 PM
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'Climate refugees are those who are confronted with conditions which make life unsustainable in their homeland because of the effects of climate. These effects include inundation and erosion, loss of fresh water and lack of affordable food due to sea level rise, ocean pollution including acidification, OVER-FISHING and climate change caused by global warming.'

I stooped reading the article when I read this. After I'd stopped laughing at this stupidity I wrote this.

I'm going back to read the rest in case there is more mirth to be gained.
Posted by imajulianutter, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 7:04:09 PM
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it's illegal under international law to limit birthrates and replace one population with another, it's called genocide.
Jay,
in that case it should also be illegal to help people who don't help themselves. I'm not talking about people who can't help themselves. It should be illegal to take from one 7 give to the other without consent as is Government;s practise with our taxes.
Is it still genocide if people can't sustain their high breeding rates ?
Posted by individual, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 7:24:40 PM
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Here's another head scratcher.
Due to the effects of climate change and rising sea levels the Dutch began their system of Dikes and Polders around 1,000 years ago.
I read the Wiki on it and the works are an incredible feat of engineering, the more modern dikes were made of stone which had to be imported from other countries.

So where are the dikes in Bangaldesh, Kiribati, Kerala and other low lying areas of the world?
Don't Bangladeshis understand their environment, even after their thousands of years living there, or is it that they are too stupid, lazy or selfish to work together for their own protection?
Most Bangaldeshis we're told make about a dollar a day, so instead of wasting money on processing and housing refugees why not use that cash to pay Bangaldeshis five dollars a day to drag silt from the delta and raise the land levels in vulnerable areas?
Win/Win no?
They'll do it if you pay them and supervise the work, otherwise they'll just sit and stare stupefied as the next storm or king tide bears down and carries off their livelihood, or worse, their family.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Tuesday, 15 November 2011 7:37:13 PM
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Jay

It's not a matter of stupidity, laziness or selfishness. It is a case of cultural difference.

Westerners have a culture formed from both semitic thought and Greek reason and logic. That mix has produced an outlook that holds while some things are outside of our control, many things can be manipulated by reason and logic to benefit us.

That is a basic of our civilisation.

Bangladesh draws it's historical roots to the semitic language groups of the mid east. Broadly these are based in the historical theological and irrational patterns of Islam, Judaism and, to a much lesser influence, pre reformation and enlightenment Christainity. And of course one of the common tenets of these are pre-destination, which results in a belief in having little control over your circumstances and eventual salvation/damnation.
Posted by imajulianutter, Wednesday, 16 November 2011 9:13:56 AM
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Semitic as in Islam right?
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Wednesday, 16 November 2011 12:30:13 PM
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Imajulianutter,

Well, no, actually Bangla is an Indo-Iranian language, i.e. related to Hindi and Sanskrit and so to most European languages. What was your point ?

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 16 November 2011 12:55:03 PM
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please explain what Semetic actually means , imajulianutter, Wednesday, 16 November 2011 9:13:56 AM
Posted by Garum Masala, Wednesday, 16 November 2011 1:10:12 PM
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Loudmouth Joe,

actually while the language of Bangladish is as you say Indo-Iranian, the religion of 85% of Bangladeshis is Islam. It is this religious influence, which was introduced by semitic peoples, is the more persuavise in influence on Bangladishi society. Similar is seen in Iran.


Garum Masala, Jay Of Melbourne here are a couple of definitions and your point was?

Semitic or ( less commonly ) Shemitic (sɪˈmɪtɪk)

— n
1. a branch or subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages that includes Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Amharic, and such ancient languages as Akkadian and Phoenician

— adj
2. denoting, relating to, or belonging to this group of languages

3. denoting, belonging to, or characteristic of any of the peoples speaking a Semitic language, esp the Jews or the Arabs

4. another word for Jewish

Shemitic or ( less commonly ) Shemitic
— n
— adj

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

American Heritage Cultural Dictionary

Semitic [(suh- mit -ik)]

A descriptive term for several peoples of the Middle East and their descendants, including Jews and Arabs ( see Arab-Israeli conflict). Today the term is mainly applied to Jews. ( See anti-Semitism.)

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
Posted by imajulianutter, Wednesday, 16 November 2011 7:45:41 PM
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Thank you, Imajulianutter. To get back to topic, but now that you mentioned Bangladesh, I do recall in my geography classes that the tectonic plate on which Bangladesh sits is tilting down in the east and tilting up in the west (in Bengal in India), so that floods were going to be far more likely in Bangladesh as the Brahmaputra was blocked by the sea and as coastal subsidence meant cyclones (typhoons) would do far more damage to Bangladesh over time.

We also learnt that Pacific coral atolls subsided and were always being slowly built up, but that they were always in danger of being swamped by high seas, viz. Tuvalu. We also learnt that the Aswan Dam would block the transportation of Nile silt to the Delta, leading to its rapid erosion by the sea. They were great teachers up at Flinders.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 16 November 2011 8:00:35 PM
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imajulianutter,
See Joe's post, I assumed your use of the word Semitism referred to Islam, a more recent influence on the region.
"Semite" is a confusing term in this context, there's speculation that "Khazars" and "Aryans" who supposedly spread the Indo Iranian languages are related through the Y chromosome...and not via Abraham either, they're supposedly Nimrod's sons....which is a disturbing thought.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Wednesday, 16 November 2011 9:11:33 PM
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So-called environmentally induced migration is multi-level problem. According to Essam El-Hinnawi definition form 1985 environmental refugees as those people who have been forced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or permanently, because of a marked environmental disruption (natural or triggered by people) that jeopardised their existence and/or seriously affected the quality of their life. The fundamental distinction between `environmental migrants` and `environmental refugees` is a standpoint of contemporsry studies in EDPs.

According to Bogumil Terminski it seems reasonable to distinguish the general category of environmental migrants from the more specific (subordinate to it) category of environmental refugees.

Environmental migrants, therefore, are persons making a short-lived, cyclical, or longerterm change of residence, of a voluntary or forced character, due to specific environmental factors. Environmental refugees form a specific type of environmental migrant.

Environmental refugees, therefore, are persons compelled to spontaneous, short-lived, cyclical, or longer-term changes of residence due to sudden or gradually worsening changes in environmental factors important to their living, which may be of either a short-term or an irreversible character
Posted by jane_perth, Saturday, 19 November 2011 12:24:02 AM
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So-called environmentally induced migration is multi-level problem. According to Essam El-Hinnawi definition form 1985 environmental refugees as ―those people who have been forced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or permanently, because of a marked environmental disruption (natural or triggered by people) that jeopardised their existence and/or seriously affected the quality of their life. The fundamental distinction between `environmental migrants` and `environmental refugees` is a standpoint of contemporsry studies in EDPs.

According to Bogumil Terminski it seems reasonable to distinguish the general category of environmental migrants from the more specific (subordinate to it) category of environmental refugees.

Environmental migrants, therefore, are persons making a short-lived, cyclical, or longerterm change of residence, of a voluntary or forced character, due to specific environmental factors. Environmental refugees form a specific type of environmental migrant.

Environmental refugees, therefore, are persons compelled to spontaneous, short-lived, cyclical, or longer-term changes of residence due to sudden or gradually worsening changes in environmental factors important to their living, which may be of either a short-term or an irreversible character
Posted by jane_perth, Saturday, 19 November 2011 12:25:18 AM
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