'We're going to sink': hundreds abandon Caribbean island home
https://phys.org/news/2023-09-hundreds-abandon-caribbean-island-home.htmlOpen linkView original on lemmy.nzhttps://phys.org/news/2023-09-hundreds-abandon-caribbean-island-home.htmlOpen linkView original on lemmy.nz
Just a few years ago people were talking about how in the future mass migrations would happen because of climate change like it was some distant problem. Well, it's happening now and people are already being displaced.
If there were suddenly 10 million more people in Alaska, they wouldn't have homes, water access, food, heat, etc.
Building out those services takes time and resources, and the issue with mass climate migrations is they are coming sooner than governments are planning for and will sap resources.
That's not whet the user was saying, he was just giving an example of landmass proportional to a population to explain that mass displacement isn't an issue of space.
Obviously there are other challenges, and he's not even giving a solution, just a comparison of space.
But land area hasn't been a thing since the industrial revolution. The wealth of most nations isn't dependent on sustenance farming.
@qooqie @TheChurn
Lot of people in this thread apparently unaware of exactly how flammable the thawed out north has turned out to be. Siberia has been pretty much continuously on fire since 2021, and you're probably already aware of the extensive wildfire problems in Canada.
I, too, at one point had figured climate change would just push the habitable zone north and open up more of the very large continental area up there. But it turns out, that's not going to be very habitable.
The problem isn't land, it's not even the ability to build infrastructure to support displacement, it's the will. Many millions of people would rather others come to harm than change a single thing about their environment or habits. Europe has the space and means to allow 500 million to immigrate, but they freak out about a fraction of that coming over under the most heart-, back- and breath-taking conditions. Instead of voting for everything and anything to be done to make a good life possible for refugees and locals alike, they will vote for parties that suggest those less fortunate be shot at the border. And that for even daring to escape their misfortune.
The only thing I'm happy about is that Europeans are starting to experience the inconveniences of climate change. Those minor inconveniences of "oh it's quite hot this summer", "darn, I may not water my garden with drinkable water", or even losing an insured house due to a storm, are forcing some to face the music. We in the west may huff and puff at the big, unstoppable, rolling ball of climate change that is coming towards us, but ultimately, we will have to adapt. No amount of conspiracy theories like "the government is burning down our houses to make smart cities" will protect the feeble-minded from what's coming.
I love that we will have to deal with consequences of our actions. The only way most people change is through crisis, and boy do we have a crisis heading for us.
Even the worst case climate change models don't make most of Alaska nicely inhabitable. Sure people live there, but the winters remain cold, and summers short.
So when they say "idyllic clear waters," they mean...?
Yep. They can very clearly see their shit.
Correct, toilet water.