The Great Climate Migration Has Begun (nytimes.com) 235
Today, 1% of the world is a barely livable hot zone. By 2070, that portion could go up to 19%. Billions of people call this land home. Where will they go?
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Great Climate Migration Has Begun
Related Links Top of the: day, week, month.
"The vast majority of successful major crimes against property are perpetrated by individuals abusing positions of trust." -- Lawrence Dalzell
Antarctica (Score:2, Interesting)
Should be balmy by then. It's a whole continent the size of the USA and mexico combined. And then there's also Canada/Greenland. So yeah plenty of land.
Non-tech summary, left wing paywall so no RTFA (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Non-tech summary, left wing paywall so no RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
I've stopped a a few years visiting Slashdot on a daily basis; probably around the time they dropped the 'News for Nerds'-tagline, and right about the time they started promoting intentionally false headlines, and non-tech related posts to the front page.
To this day, I've still not been able to find a site which replicates the intelligent discussions that took place here end nineties/start of the millennium: Any suggestions?
Re: (Score:3)
To this day, I've still not been able to find a site which replicates the intelligent discussions that took place here end nineties/start of the millennium: Any suggestions?
1) The discussions were likely not as intelligent as you remember. You're now older and wiser.
2) I've had decent luck replacing slashdot with very selective hand picked Reddit groups. In fact, I will likely remove Slashdot from my bookmarks soon. I almost did it last week. Not much to come here for anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
I should know better than to read posts by the likes of you, rsilvergun, and barefoot. You're all detached from reality.
Humans learn, and the civilizing effects of education do change people.
Re: (Score:3)
Hmm..."the times have never changed" and "since we were beating each other over the head with clubs and dragging women around by their hair" are interesting. Especially s
I've yet to see an intentionally false headline (Score:5, Informative)
As for a site that replicates the 90s, you won't find it. The 90s was an economic and tech boom time. The 2020s is a dystopia where the economy has collapsed 3 times in the last 20 years and we've got Federal Police walking our streets and teargassing mayors.
You're not going to find that kind of cheerful optimism and sense of fun anywhere. Times are Grim.
Re: (Score:2)
Also I don't think it mentioned the expansion of areas that used to be too cold to live in. but maybe it did as tl;dr.
Re: Non-tech summary, left wing paywall so no RTFA (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Broke right wingers? Never thought I'd see it, but the right wing that thought they were super pro-business and pro-freedom realized they have zero skills and money making ability after all. Seems the left wing has money and now the right wing has become bitter about wealth.
Re: (Score:2)
It is really a sad state, that Science creates such a division.
Heck I can't even say the world is round without it seeming like I am making some political statement.
I read a book about climate migration 30 years ago (Score:3)
It was originally recommended in on of those weekly readers or whatever in grade school in the 80s. It was about a family that had migrated to the national capital of the United States - Houston - to escape the encroaching ice-age. The book dealt with illegal immigration - they mentioned the fact Mexico was fed up with all the Americans border hopping into their nation. The family the book focused on was fed up with Houston, as a Houston resident I can see why, so they decided to turn-tail and flee back north and grow crops during the very short growing season and try to live ruggedly in the cold territory of, I don't really recall, it's been a very long time, but I'm pretty sure it was considered a southern state.
I can't recall the name of the book anymore, but I would so love to read that junior fiction novel on global cooling from the late 70's / early 80's again.
Re: (Score:2)
If you really want to find that story, try Abebooks Booksleuth. They are amazing at finding stories with the barest amount of information.
http://forums.abebooks.com/abesleuthcom
Re: (Score:2)
Greenland (Score:2)
'Migration' isn't the real problem (Score:5, Interesting)
That, and the wars that will break out over resources, land you can live on and farm on, and so on.
Remember, we still have between all nuclear nations enough nuclear weapons to make the Earth an uninhabitable radioactive wasteland.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That one requires the cooperation of billions of people. Given that only a small percent of people are suitably deranged it isn't feasible.
Migration's a huge problem (Score:3)
They'll be used by fascists and dictators the same way they have for millennial. The citizens will be whipped up into a froth of hate and fear and instead of solving the problems that caused them to show up in the first place at best they'll be kept at the border to starve while the citizenry on the other side of the wall allows themselves to be brutally oppressed for "
"Has begun" (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
You'll see in the article mention of climate-driven migrations already underway in Central America and the Middle East. It's not the major focus, so it might have been easy to miss.
Accommodation or war (Score:2)
Hundreds of millions of people will not just sit and wait to die of famine or heat stroke. There will be an accommodation, or there will be war. Is this what we want?
If we're not going to fix the climate, the only other option to avoid catastrophe is to invest hugely in infrastructure: energy production, high density agriculture, whole new cities. This is not going to be simply waved away by a magical invisible hand.
The real tech story is the article page design! (Score:2)
YECH!!!
I get it. Sometimes media outlets think they need to address readership as if we're all 12 years old, but could we at least get one without the animations, graphics, and giant font? Some of us actually value forming our understanding of the world using our brains instead of our hearts. We don't need facts "marketed" to us.
I barely got through any of the article, but I'm pretty sure it can be summarized as such:
Climate change is having a noticeable affect on the populations who already live in areas o
Serious question (Score:2)
So if so much land will become unlivable because it is so hot, why do you not offer the figures for how much land was unlivable because it was too cold will now be usable, or farmable where it was not before?
Re: (Score:2)
So if so much land will become unlivable because it is so hot, why do you not offer the figures for how much land was unlivable because it was too cold will now be usable, or farmable where it was not before?
Moving north or south to the poles where this is only a few hours of daylight most of the year isn't going to be somewhere people want to live, and certainly isn't going to be suited for farming.
This isn't journalism (Score:2)
"barely livable hot zone" (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My understanding from people I know who live in Florida is that residents there avoid dying in the heat by just staying inside as much as possible. That sounds like an awful way to live if you ask me.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah I'm sure millions of migrants will line up for -35C winters and mosquito-filled summers.
I'm just going to leave this here... (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Destination (Score:2)
Underground? (Score:2)
Could we build cities and dwellings underground that stay cool against all the heat?
Re: (Score:2)
For the mole people? Who would want to live underground?
We have air conditioning. It works fine. The major problem will be lack of food due to rainfall and temperature changes affecting crop production.
Re: (Score:2)
I dunno, I don't think i'd have a problem living underground.
AC just seems so inefficient. It takes so much energy to run which just seems to make the problem worse unless we have eliminated coal power and such.
Have you ever looked at a world map? (Score:2)
It's moments of mindless idiotic catastrophism that one has to ask if people who ask questions this stupid have ever had even half-decent education. Anyone who passed a world geography class in school knows that there's a massive amount of effectively human-free landmass that is effectively unsuitable for human habitat because it's too cold. Canada and Russia are mostly empty of humans because of this.
All while equatorial land mass is tiny in comparison. And one of the main features of global warming so far
Re:Have you ever looked at a world map? (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know about Russia, but most of the parts of Canada that are empty are empty for several reasons, not just the cold. For starters, most of it was scraped clean by the glaciers and has almost no soil. Even if it warms up, you won't be growing crops on it.
The same glaciers carved out about a billion small lakes and ponds, which makes it hard to build roads or cities, but does make a wonderful breeding ground for mosquitos. So the 4 months a year that aren't freeze-your-face-off-cold are mosquito and fly infested joyfulness.
We get hundreds of thousands of immigrants a year but virtually all of them settle in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Not that big empty North.
So yeah, good luck with that.
Re: (Score:3)
It's a good thing we invented fertilizer to impregnate soils quite a while ago, which is why we can cultivate things in tropics, where soil is exceedingly poor.
Also Sweden and Finland have long since proven that you can in fact have functional agriculture in this environment. Soil is indeed fairly poor compared to best soils in temperate regions a few thousand kilometers to the south where glaciers pushed the best soil to, existing soil remains functional as long as you can fertilize it properly. There's no
2070 (Score:3)
2 WORDS: Time Machine (Score:2)
In related news, I no longer believe anything or disbelieve anything. I am no longer afraid of ice ages, nuclear bombs, HIV from vaginal sex with non-drug users, virus's, global warming, shoe bombs, deadly tooth paste, murder wasps, killer bees, sharknadoes, Qanons, Epstein Island, race wars, sexual harrassment and 5g. I am still afraid of spiders so if the news could just go on nonstop about spiders for 3 months I think they might be able to cure me.
It's like Daredevil once said, "A man without Facebook is
Re: (Score:2)
I was thinking Cleveland, myself. Because, hey, it's Cleveland.
Re: All Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it just says "Basically, I don't think.".
This getting an "Insightful" is why the USA is considered a primitive backwards country of dumb brainwashed people. Of course it's just some loud morons again, making everyone look bad. But the problem is, that *you let them*... and let them control the discussion I don't even mean making a counter-argument, as retarded ignorant statements without logic or reason do not form an argument that would need countering in the first place (so don't fall for that trap). I mean telling such people "Shut up, retard!". Instad of acting all "fair and balanced" and doing the equivalent of giving creationism equal time as biology, in school.
Bring up per-capita wealth (Score:2, Interesting)
Given the state of our country and politicians, I sincerely hope they tell everyone to go fuck themselves. The last thing the US needs to export is our fucked up arms dealership and slave trade.
(Quick note: America canned slavery about 150 years ago. Modern slavery exists only in certain countries led by religious doctrine, and there seems to be a strong push to import those cultures into our own.)
Jordan Peterson pointed out that, statistically speaking according to studies, once the per-capita income reaches about $10,000 people become concerned for the environment. So it appears that one way to effect environmental change is to bring everyone in the world out of poverty and into wealthier living
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is why governments need and generate poverty.
Do you want to know who the biggest liars in government are? The one's promising things for their voters. Do you want to know who the most honest people in government? The ones telling you to fuck off and that they do not care about you.
We have the technology and man power to solve 100% of our Environment, Poverty, and Financial issues... but we are just not going to solve them. Those will ONLY be solved when it benefits governments to do so. Right now.
CaN I have what you are smoking? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
That's just the normal selfishness and lack of empathy that seems to be on the rise right now. They don't care about other people, so they don't care about the law. Well, they do care when the law affects them personally. They call that "oppression".
It's disgusting.
Re: (Score:2)
"That's just the normal selfishness and lack of empathy that seems to be on the rise right now."
You are wrong... it's not on the rise... it has never went away. This is a dirty lie that seems to crop up every time something does not go someones way.
"Well, they do care when the law affects them personally. They call that "oppression".
BINGO! And the best part... they don't give a shit about any other group it is negatively affecting other than their own.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
That is some impressive cynicism which isn't based in reality. People fight for others all the time. Arguably not enough of them.
Note the BLM protests, Rev Al Sharpton even pointed out the the difference between protests of today versus in the 60s. Where you have plenty of people of all skin colors out fighting for the rights of others. White people who very much enjoy white privilege out protesting the mistreatment of black people. It is right in front of you right now. There are plenty of other people wh
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That is why you proclaim a government that recognizes that there are some rights that are inalienable. Then you take the right of violent, offensive force, and give the state, duly controlled by the people, a monopoly on it. We can't stop human nature. We can only fence it in.
Re: (Score:2)
Quick note: America canned slavery about 150 years ago.
Maybe some non-US countries in America did, but the US only banned some forms of slavery, not all of them.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, why don't you move the country that has banned all "forms" then. I'm sure you'll like it there, since you already know everybody that lives there.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
They're not people, they're felons. It's fine to remove those inalienable rights from felons, it is part of being free.
Re: (Score:2)
America canned slavery about 150 years ago
Not really
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.".
Be sure to curb your dog
Re: (Score:2)
Educating girls [globalcitizen.org] can help end the cycle of poverty. Turning women from homemakers and caregivers into labor increases your nation's economic output. And there are also interesting side effects that when caring for children, educated women stimulate and educate children. Bringing about a more successful generations. I doubt the effect is cumulative, more education probably doesn't equate a proportionally larger benefit. Once you have TVs and Internet and general literacy there is probably not quite the huge i
Re: (Score:2)
It's worth noting that "caring for environment" has nothing to do with current "global warming will kill us all" angle common in the West. Chinese for example don't give a toss about it. They care about air quality, water quality and so on. The things that actually impact them. They don't care if Africans may have bigger deserts in a few decades. Both because they like most normal people on the planet don't care about foreigners, and because they don't care about time when they'll most likely be dead.
Same a
Re: (Score:3)
ability to form corporations with advantages, rules, and transparency enforced by law, and personal security enforced by law
You're describing what has largely been the cause of climate change instead of a solution. You're proposing a system where making money (make no mistake, corporations exist only to make money, usually for a very limited number of individuals) is more important than human life. Corporations actively fight against transparency and practically any law that hampers them on their way to profit.
So one way to help solve environmental issues is to work to bring people out of poverty
I think you're deluded. Bringing more people out of poverty means creating many more consumers that all will want to h
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Bring up per-capita wealth (Score:5, Insightful)
We should pay convicts $15/hour and send $14 of it as restitution to their victims and their community.
Allowing private business to benefit from tax payer dollars gives them the wrong profit motive.
Re: (Score:2)
Are YOU crazy? Have you ever even talked to anyone who spent time in the joint? There are waiting lists for these jobs, just because it is an opportunity to do something, ANYTHING, other that sitting around vegetating.
Re: Bring up per-capita wealth (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Bring up per-capita wealth (Score:3)
No, pay them a minimum wage of $20 while OUTSIDE of prison! $15 for a work and life that is livable, and $5 for added hardship and compensation for damages that would turn them into criminals otherwise.
That way they won't become criminals in the first place, but will instead do nice things that improve life and society. Maybe keep selling ice cream instead of raping children. Maybe become a cop *instead* of killing people. Maybe become a teacher instead of preaching hate.
That is what you don't get: Every cr
Re: Bring up per-capita wealth (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Arable land (Score:2)
From desert to permafrost I'm pretty sure that more than 1% of the global land mass is not arable and that's been true for all of recorded history. If that's the quality of reporting where this article starts I'll take it with a very large grain of salt.
Re: (Score:2)
Global warming is mostly warming of the northern parts of the planet indeed, and warming there is expected to be far beyond average.
Re:Canada (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
The majority of Alaska, like Canada is a frozen swamp. Unfreeze it and you'll have muddy slop.
Re: (Score:2)
"In 2019, the population density was approximately 92.9 residents per square mile of land area. Population density has been tracked for over two hundred years in the United States. Over the last two centuries, the number of people living in the United States per square mile has grown from 4.5 in 1790 to 87.4 in 2010."
So, no, we all don't get a square mile in AK.
Re: (Score:2)
Works out to 424,491,100 acres. Maybe that's what you meant?
an acre of rough wildness is tough to make a living on, especially if that acre is the side of a mountain.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe Marxist Hacker 42 used metric miles for his calculations.
Re: (Score:2)
The influx of people from a different country seems to just go on government assistance.
Re: (Score:3)
Temporarily, then if the community is open to them, they will be able to stand on their own two feet, and pay back to the economy that they needed to start.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why is it the Baby boomers population boom is considered good for the economy,
Baby Boomers have most of the wealth available for spending thanks to decades of saving, investing, and home ownership.
while an influx of people from a different country seems to be bad for the economy.
Because they are generally uneducated and poor and need assistance with basic living expenses which is bad for the economy and puts a downward pressure wages of low skilled professions.
I expect that they are not bad for the economy, but just racists who seem to focus only on a stereotype negative vs actually looking at what really happens.
You are admitting you are ignorant and are making assumptions because you "expect" it to be true but don't know. I expect that you are no more than 25, have lived your life in middle class comfort, and have n
Re: (Score:2)
The article itself features a Guatemalan farmer with a primary school education. What jobs is qualified for in the United States? Farming, but he has no land and no money to buy land. Working in a fast food restaurant. Working as a dishwasher/busboy in a regular restaurant. A construction laborer. A meat packer, one of the few low skill jobs left We have no low skilled factory jobs left.
If you have more people, you need more jobs supporting them. They kinda go together.
If you have less people in total, you have less people buying fast food, less construction for people to live and work, less factories producing things for less people.
Yes, unproductive people are a drain, but adding more productive people increases demand for yet more productive people. That is how economies grow. That is why the baby boom was a benefit, but will be less and less so going forward.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How is that different than the Native Americans, Europians, and Asians having a fit because these Islamic people do not wear a bikini at the beach?
When societies merge, there will be some conflicts where each side seeing other people doing things that would consider odd or immoral. For the terms of them _demanding_ a fitness center to block their windows. The country doesn't need to give into these demands. Now if there is enough people which can effect an election in that case society has changed, for it
Re: (Score:2)
How is that different than the Native Americans, Europians, and Asians having a fit because these Islamic people do not wear a bikini at the beach?
It isn't, if you're in their country on their beach. Queue the joke of the traveler complaining about all the foreigners in the country they're visiting.
Re: (Score:3)
I guess you are in the list too.
From the original troll post "arms dealership and slave trade" This isn't how we talk about different nations, but ethnic groups within those areas.
Nationalism is our nation is #1 no matter what. Racism is these group of people are naturally bad.
Re: (Score:2)
Why is it the Baby boomers population boom is considered good for the economy? It isn't. In fact, Boomers put a lot of strain on the economy especially as they got older. Population booms are not good. I don't understand why maintaining borders is now "racist", but I guess that is what Marxism gets you.
The Boomer population boom was great, when all those people were contributing to the economy. There is this thing called a population pyramid. You should read about it.
Here is the one for Canada: https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/ce... [statcan.gc.ca]
Boomers are a strain on the economy now because fewer and fewer younger working people have to support them in their old age (we have social programs here and do try to look after them). We need more immigration badly as the natural reproduction rate barely replaces those dying.
W
Re:Obvious answer is obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Very few people want to live on methane belching melting permafrost at a latitude where the sun doesn't rise for three months out of the year. Doesn't matter if it's marginally warmer than it was, it's still shitty. And even if they do move there, can they move their infrastructure as well? No. Who is going to pay for the new infrastructure? The people who caused climate change and forced these folks to move? Yeah, right.
Re: (Score:3)
It's not about warming, you still have shitty soil and no sun even if its warmer.
Coronavirus will not kill nearly enough to right size anything. I think we need to slaughter and eat the top 1%. Or maybe God will provide us with a virus that only kills sociopaths, that would also do the trick.
Will they though? (Score:5, Informative)
The coming changes are going to be rapid. Less than 2 generations. That's a bit much to ask a species and complex and dependent on technology as our to adapt to.
Re: (Score:2)
No not really, that isn't how climate change really works.
First there is geometry, there is more area along the equator of a sphere than at the poles.
Then there is the fact that cold areas are still really cold. And these warming cold areas are rapidly flooding thus making it hard to stake claim to land.
Cities in these climates are also facing structural problems, as Permafrost is melting causing buildings to sink.
Re: (Score:3)
We're already feeling the changes in Canada. For the last few years, our summers have gone up from 3.5 to 3.8 days.
Re: (Score:2)
No, no they were not.
How can we still be having this 'debate', for God's sake? Where are you getting this deceitfully wrong information?
Re: Why not look at history? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Why not look at history? (Score:4, Informative)
It is not unprecedented. What we cal learn from previous climate changes is that they created a lot of social unrest and migration. What we are going to see is Africa making a run on Europe. Europe is already quite densely populated. Now increase the population by 20% and account for the fact that this 20% will lack the education needed to get a job in the European economy. Europe is ill-prepared for receiving a large wave of immigration because the labor market is rigid and restricted. It worked very well until the 90s, but not it is inadequate. In the 90s there was shift away from manufacturing, so now the jobs where there is demand for people all require education, which people from Africa mostly lack. So you will get a lot of immigrants unable to find jobs, and you still have a lot of disenfranchised working class people who lost their jobs to globalization. It is a recipe for major trouble.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if you are right (which you are not), world population drastically changed. In 2000 BC there were between 27 and 72 million people on Earth, today it's 7.8 billion. That's three orders of magnitude more.
TFS question: Where will they go?
To answer: To war. There will be horrible wars.
Re: (Score:3)
Anyone over 25 who is still considered 'young'? They're still traumatized by what happened to the world in 2008. Then when maybe they start thinking they can unclench, relax a little, here comes Trump and then this gods-be-damned pandemic. So they already had a go-bag packed and in arms' reach every single day already, and now they're sure the world
Re: (Score:3)
The youth is always going to be the youth. When you are 16-25 the main thing on your mind is Sex. With a pass time of education and getting a job to support yourself.
The boomers on the other hand. Never grew up, they grew old.
My Grandparents were part of the Greatest Generation while my Parents were boomers. The difference towards old age is huge.
My Grandparents embraced their old age, they knew that they were going to die, and they were OK by that, they didn't want to die, but had put things in place for
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately, I have to agree with you completely. Sad, dark times.
Re: (Score:2)
While the Anti-Climate Cult is a big fan of pointing guns at these people for trying to move out. Because they don't want them near them.
Because to them, it is their fault the land that they lived for thousands of years is changing.
Re: Chinese viruses are the answer (Score:2)