"Desertification will cause people to migrate out of unproductive and water-scarce areas.
Greater variability in weather patterns will lead to dramatic climate events such as hurricanes, typhoons, and extreme cold which will disrupt human settlements.
"Unpredictable rainfall will lead to periods of flooding and drought, making certain areas uninhabitable.
Warming oceans and ocean acidification endanger coral ecosystems and the artisanal, pelagic, and aquaculture fisheries upon which hundreds of millions of people depend for food. Meanwhile, lack of access to safe drinking water is a further major contributor to morbidity and mortality, particularly among children, in developing countries. Changes in rainfall and river flows jeopardize human health via impacts on agriculture, daily hydration, cooking, and domestic hygiene."
Besides land-based impacts, climate change is also warming ocean waters and raising sea levels worldwide. Researchers at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs took a close look at this trend and came to some startling conclusions:
"Predicted effects of a one-meter rise in sea-level, assuming no adaptation measures are taken. In Asia, more than 117 million people are exposed to inundation, in Europe 13.5 million, in Africa 12 million, in Latin America 760 thousand, and in Pacific islands 300 thousand. Bangladesh may lose 21% of its land. Several islands in the Pacific may be completely submerged. Moreover, approximately one billion people live at sea level or a few meters above. Sixteen of the world's 19 largest cities (population above 10 million) are located on coastlines. The implications are daunting.
"Logically, regions whose livelihood depends on agriculture are more likely to experience the adverse effects of environmental degradation. People in these regions are therefore more likely than others to migrate when facing environmental problems. The shares of the labor force employed in agriculture in 2000 were 58% in Africa, 51% in Asia, 24% in Central America, 18% in Oceania, 14% in South America, 8.6% in Europe, and 6% in North America. In Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, the agricultural employment shares were highest: 66% and 58.5%, respectively ."
For those still in doubt about how seriously a changing climate can affect large agricultural populations, they need only pick up a history of the American Dust Bowl years of the 1930s. Recent studies concluded that about 2.5 million left the Great Plains in the 1930s due to environmental degradation, inundating western states with climate refugees. The influx got so bad that the state of California actually closed its border to fellow Americans (dubbing them "Oakies") who were simply fleeing their then worthless midwest farms, and sending many of them north into Oregon and Washington.
The American Dust Bowl years offer just a hint of how fast mass populations react to devastating changes in their local climate. And that's exactly what's beginning to happen, not just on land, but at sea as well, where billions of folks depend for much of their diet.
"Climate change is already inducing marine animals to migrate, and according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, it's starting to make people move, too. They found, high temperatures, particularly during the spring and winter farming season, were the dominant driver of mass migration. It's not that it suddenly became too hot for people to live. But as temperature and weather patterns change, the previously productive ground may become uneconomical to work. High heat wipes out the farming economy, the researchers suggest, causing Pakistani men to pack up and leave for greener pastures...The risk of a male, non-migrant moving out of the village is 11 times more likely when exposed to temperature values in the fourth quartile."
Such large and uncontrolled migrations bring with them a host of problems for the receiving nations as well, as we've seen already in both the US and Europe. A recent study by The National Institute of Health discovered:
"Resettlement schemes (for migrants) typically lead to adverse social outcomes: landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, social marginalization, heightened food insecurity, loss of access to common property resources, and community disarticulation."
Current migration troubles in Southern European countries give us a preview of what's to come once the flood of climate-migrants begin arriving, according to the environmental nonprofit, NRDC:
"In the European Union, where the stresses and strains associated with processing large numbers of migrants have already reached crisis proportions, experts predict that the annual stream of those seeking safety within its borders -- will triple -- by the end of the century due to climate-related migration. And a 2018 World Bank Group report estimates that the impacts of climate change in three of the world's most densely populated developing regions -- sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America -- could result in the displacement and internal migration of more than 140 million people before 2050.That many people on the move could easily lead to massive political and economic strife and significantly stall development in those regions.
While the Trump administration and other climate change deniers continue to dispute and downplay the seriousness of this crisis, scientists, the vast majority of them, say the data doesn't lie.
"The largest numbers of people that hydro-meteorological disasters affect are found in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, which reflects the pattern of dependence on the environment for livelihood. All forecasts predict considerable global environmental degradation, including a rise in sea-level, inundation of coastal areas, more intense and frequent extreme weather events, changes in temperatures and precipitation, declining freshwater resources, and falling soil productivity.
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