Governments must plan for migration in response to climate change, researchers say

 

October 28, 2011 – LONDON – If global temperatures increase by only a few of degrees by 2100, as predicted by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, people around the world will be forced to migrate. But transplanting populations from one location to another is a complicated proposition that has left millions of people impoverished in recent years. The researchers say that a word of caution is in order and that governments should take care to understand the ramifications of forced migration. “Sometimes the problem is simply a lack of regard for the people ostensibly in the way of progress,” said Oliver-Smith, an emeritus professor who has researched issues surrounding forced migration for more than 30 years. But resettlements frequently fail because the complexity of the task is underestimated. “Transplanting a population and its culture from one location to another is a complex process — as complicated as brain surgery,” he said. A consortium of 12 scientists from around the world, including two UF researchers, gathered last year at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center to review 50 years of research related to population resettlement following natural disasters or the installation of infrastructure development projects such as dams and pipelines. The group determined that resettlement efforts in the past have left communities in ruin, and that policy makers need to use lessons from the past to protect people who are forced to relocate because of climate change. “The effects of climate change are likely to be experienced by as many people as disasters,” UF anthropologist Anthony Oliver-Smith said. “More people than ever may be moving in response to intense storms, increased flooding and drought that makes living untenable in their current location.” –Physics.org

Book quote: “To survive what‘s before us; we’ll have to take a note from the animals- mass seasonal migrations to flee the areas of the Earth that will become increasingly inhospitable from the extremes of climate change…extreme winters, partial glaciations, blistering temperatures from a runaway global heating trend and a chaotic Sun on the precipice of convulsion will render life in many regions of the world unbearable.” –The Extinction Protocol, page 9