There could be 1.2B climate refugees by 2050

https://www.zurich.com/en/media/magazine/2022/there-could-be-1-2-billion-climate-refugees-by-2050-here-s-what-you-need-to-know

by lmc • 4 years ago

37 45 4 years ago

zurich.com

stmfreak• 4 years ago

There also could be zero.

scifibestfi• 4 years ago

Probably not 0, but it'll be closer to 0 than 1.2B. We have solutions.

redmen• 4 years ago

Yah we have solutions but they won't be applied by any competent groups of people.

Seriously, look at silicon Valley and all of the garbage they produced with all their knowledge.

Silicon Valley fucked it all up.

gilrain• 4 years ago

There are already many climate refugees.

barbacoa2• 4 years ago

Downvotes don't make this statement any less of a possibility. As CO2 increases plants use less water in respiration, making deserts greener. This is part of the reason the Earth is becoming greener despite human activity. For some reason climate change activists always ignore mitigating forces.

wh3135• 4 years ago

How much does this greening offset the other effects of climate change, such as increased severe weather, ecosystem loss, and water scarcity, among other things [1] ?

[1] https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6...

nequo3• 4 years ago

Very important problem. And the effect it will have on xenophobia and support for anti-democratic politics should not be ignored. The 20th century will feel like an age of innocence.

engineer_22• 4 years ago

Please make the connection between xenophobia and democracy

EDIT: I agree that it looks like things could get very bad. Let's hope for best possible outcomes.

Teever• 4 years ago

In some people their xenophobic feelings are innately so strong, or can be stoked to become so strong that those people will go to great lengths to keep outsiders outside, even destroying their own democracy in the process.

wh3135• 4 years ago

From the paper "Right-wing extremism/radicalism: reconstructing the concept" [1]:

Although nationalism, racism and xenophobia are all discrete concepts, policies of exclusionary nationalism and cultural homogeneity often go hand-in-hand with racism and/or xenophobia. Homogeneity is usually advocated on the grounds that there are irreconcilable natural differences between groups of people and that these groups should not mix – i.e. according to a racist doctrine.
It is the values inherent in liberal and pluralist democracy and the procedures and institutions that sustain these values that particularly stick in the craw of right-wing extremists/radicals. Indeed, Carter defines right-wing extremism by reference to two elements: ‘a rejection of the fundamental values, procedures and institutions of the democratic constitutional state’, and ‘a rejection of the principle of fundamental human equality’.

[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13569317.2018.1...

MattGaiser• 4 years ago

Xenophobia can exist anywhere. But it is a notable turn for modern democracies which seemed to have gotten past that.

thrown_223• 4 years ago

A lifeboat is only useful so long as it doesn't sink.

We are headed to a world where accepting all refugees just means your country collapses faster.

Unless you're Canada or Russia the current century will not be a good one.

chitowneats4• 4 years ago

Geography is only half of geopolitics. I predict you are correct about Canada.

mc322• 4 years ago

Russia and Canada are big, but Canada is lots of muskeg and much or Russia is inhospitable, -30 in the Winter and 35 in the Summer. Putin was giving people 200 hectares for free to move into Siberia --few takers.

wumpus3• 4 years ago

We are headed to a world where accepting all refugees just means your country collapses faster.

Do you have a source for this statement? Studies of immigration to the US usually find that it's extremely positive for the country.

rayiner7• 4 years ago

That sounds like Newspeak to me. Insofar as climate refugees may trigger “xenophobia” it will be elites trying to overcome democratic resistance to open borders. In the US, all it took was a modest amount of scarcity ($5 gas and a bit of inflation) for the GOP to pull back ahead in the polls.

wh3135• 4 years ago

I find your point extremely interesting, though I think I'm missing one of your core assumptions. When you highlight the term "democratic," it seems to me as though you implicitly switched away from the ethical perspective of nequo's comment based on the assumption that universal human rights should be respected no matter what. Instead, you seem to be working from a legal perspective based on American law and ethical theory surrounding it. Do you mind expanding on this?

nequo3• 4 years ago

You have a point. "Anti-liberal-democracy" would probably be more accurate to say. But talking about "liberal" and "democratic" is hard in a country where this is immediately associated with one of the two major political parties.

What I meant was that our ideas of due process and equality before the law will be seen as much less desirable when those things will be the obstacle to deporting large numbers of refugees. Those things are also fundamental to democracy.

cardamomo• 4 years ago

I want to offer a hopeful rephrasing: "The effect it could have ... should be a call for us to strengthen migrants' rights today."

nequo3• 4 years ago

Action is better than hope. Do you think the rights granted today will still be seen as legitimate in 2050 and not be repealed or overturned by an anti-establishment political movement? What can ensure that they will be?

cagenut• 4 years ago

and even if thats an over-estimate, how many hundreds of millions are ok

nigrioid• 4 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKiq5EwkzDg

Markoff• 4 years ago

there could be meteorite destroying life on Earth by 2040

just read what these alarmists claimed 10 or 20 years ago to get perspective

karmakurtisaani• 4 years ago

Maybe share a link while you're at it?

There could be 1.2B climate refugees by 2050

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