[ALOCHONA] Climate change to cause surge of 'envirogees'

Climate change to cause surge of 'envirogees'   Billy I Ahmed ENVIRONMENTAL disasters from climate change and destruction of ecosystems will create a surge of refugees -- 'envirogees' -- across the planet . Maybe the buzzword will catch on faster and shed some much-needed light on what will become a serious problem, probably by the end of this or the next decade. That light is important, because so far "envirogees" haven't been fully recognised by those who certify the civil liberties of Earth's various populations, whether it is the United Nations or local and national governments whose people are increasingly on the move for a whole new set of devastating reasons. In short, immigration is about to enter a new phase, which resembles an old one with a 21st century twist. For thousands of years, humanity has fled across Earth's surface, fearing instability and in search of sustainability. From earthquake to cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh to cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, to water rationing in Los Angeles, societies are shifting like their borders. And the entire outcry over so-called illegal immigration neglects to answer one time-honoured question: If the borders are not standing still, why should the people who live in their outlines do so? Especially when they're under attack from catastrophic floods, fires, droughts and any number of other environmental dangers? Right now, the 1951 Geneva Convention does not recognise the "envirogee" phenomenon, instead focusing on immigration because of political persecution. Here are some startling "envirogee" numbers to crunch: According to the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Earth's cracking communities will have 150 million "envirogees" by 2050. According to Australian climatologist Dr. Graeme Pearman, coastal flooding resulting from a mere two-degree rise in temperature would kick 100 million people out of their danger-zone homes by 2100. Here's more scary data. Desertification is claiming land from China to Morocco to Tunisia and beyond at an increasing rate. New Orleans and parts of Alaska are slowly sliding into the sea, while the former, as Hurricane Katrina showed, is becoming a target for intensifying weather events, human corruption and half-baked infrastructure. Aquifers around the world are shrinking, while acidification is claiming cropland in Egypt and beyond. Hypoxia has claimed portions of the ocean itself with alarming speed, as stretches of the Atlantic and Pacific lose oxygen and, by extension, it would claim the marine life that not only feeds millions but also sets up the continuity of the food chain. "The rate of increase in carbon dioxide concentrations accelerated over recent decades along with fossil fuel emissions," explained a report on methane and CO2 rises by the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Organisation for Atmospheric Administration. "Since 2000, annual increases of two ppm or more have been common, compared with 1.5 ppm per year in the 1980s and less than one ppm per year during the 1960s." As for methane, in 2007 it exploded by 27 million tons after a decade with relatively no rise at all. So what's an "envirogee" to do, other than opt out of wasted fantasies like Happy Meals, factory farming, bottled water and Hummers? What else? Move. This is what "envirogees" worldwide are already doing right now, by choice or at gunpoint, and will do more often than not as situations on the ground and in the air worsen. The conflict raging in Darfur is a sobering example of the complexity. It has so far displaced 2-3 million people, and for all the talk of political or religious persecution, the fact remains that it is at its root an environmental crisis. An arid desert whose water is drying up by the day, Darfur is one of the first flashpoints of our new phase of climate conflict, a conflict that U.N. Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon explained in the Washington Post as one "that grew at least in part from desertification, ecological degradation and a scarcity of resources, foremost among them water." And like Darfur, we are numbly sitting atop our climatological past while it races to catch up with us. Parched by thirst and hungry for fossil fuels which, in turn, only aggravate that thirst and the wars it causes, "envirogees" are streaming out of these hot zones into less murderous ones, whose inhabitants are circling their wagons on the outsiders. Civil wars are breaking out. Outsiders, in turn, are becoming invaders. The irony is rich. It gets richer, or poorer, depending on where you stand on oil. The planet's shrinking petroleum reserves are now more valuable than ever, and the prices for its capture and capitalisation show zero signs of returning to normal. That expense is also beginning to be measured in lives, as carbon concentration exponentially increases and weather events become more extreme. But one can't, because it is reality. And so are "envirogees," regardless of the outdated assertions of the Geneva Convention or the staid refusal of the insurance industry to wake up and smell the hurricanes. "If we keep going down this path," French President Nicholas Sarkozy argued to the superpowers gathered at the Major Economics Meeting in Paris, "climate change will encourage the immigration of people with nothing towards areas where the population do have something, and the Darfur crisis will be only one crisis among dozens of others." That is, we won't be worried about Mexicans coming to the U.S. for economic reasons, or Africans doing the same in France and England. We will be worried about hyper-violent cyclones, floods and droughts destroying what's left of our jobs and the people who want them, as we pack and move to where soothing weather and more bountiful supplies of water, gas and food lie. We will be the ones enduring the hard stares and perhaps bullets fired from locals who are circling their wagons against victims of their own consumption and apathy. Whether we can settle with that solution, time will tell. But according to the continually underperforming science of climatology, we won't settle for long. Barring any meaningful socio-political or economic engagement, to say nothing of much-needed technological revolution, on the issue, we'll have turned from territorial citizens into climate nomads, all in a cosmological eye-blink. Billy I. Ahmed is a tea planter and researcher http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=48471

__._,_.___

[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com

Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___