Beyond Environmental Refuge: Robert McLeman at TEDxUOttawa

"Beyond environmental refugees: How climate change will affect the world's (human) migration patterns -- Scientists and security agencies warn that hundreds of millions will become environmental refugees in coming decades, forced by climate change to flee their homes and communities in the face of food shortages, water scarcity, rising sea levels, and extreme weather events. Events like these can and do cause people to migrate in search of safety, but the impacts of climate change on global migration patterns will felt on much larger scales and for more subtle reasons. The number of people who migrate voluntarily to seek job opportunities or to diversify household income sources will skyrocket as households adapt to the impacts of climate change specific to their home region. For those of us living in the potential destinations of these new migrants, the goal is not to prevent them from coming, but to innovate migration programs and policies that benefit sending and receiving areas alike."

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[rmcleman]

Thanks for your feedback. You're right, I've greatly simplified a complicated set of human-environment interactions here. In TED talks we're instructed to avoid techical detail and focus on delivering one key idea we think merits wider consideration. Mine is that climate change will put people in refugee-like situations, but its greater effect will be on labour migration, family-related migration & other voluntary migration. For my technical writings, please see my Google Scholar profile.

[liamlynch]

Thanks for your talk, belatedly! I'm starting a dissertation on the interplay between human rights and climate change, trying to focus on those displaced by anthropogenic climate change. This is great contextual information, and very eloquently expressed.

[julianchosun]

Pretty absurdly general statements but still important points that do offer astute and prescient glimpses into our shared future.

[skyclintliquit]

Economical, environmental and financial problems are one of the reason why filipino migrate to other countries.

[TheSpeedpacer]

Seems a rather naive point of view to me. At a minimum I think it ignores how close these receiving countries are to their own carrying capacity (which is also subject to material decline amidst future climate change). When it becomes clear that wealthy world living standards must converge with those of the poor world, migration will be resisted forcefully regardless of any consideration of equity or acceptance of proportional contribution to climate change. Migration is far more likely to be cast as an apologist/enabler for localized human overpopulation.

[benoitevraire]

wath about the the the blood those that material