The problem from a climate perspective is that while these hundreds of thousands of refugees have led to the “world’s largest humanitarian crisis since World War II,” as the European Commission has described it, the numbers of refugees pale in comparison with what the world faces if we don’t avoid catastrophic climate change.
On the one hand, study after study are now finding that only aggressive climate action can save the world’s coastal cities from inundation by century’s end. The world should be anticipating five to six feet of sea level rise by 2100 — which by itself would generate hundreds of millions of refugees.
But at the same time, we face as many (if not more) refugees from Dust-Bowlification and the threat to our food supplies.
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We are currently on track to make drought and extreme drying the normal condition for the Southwest, Central Plains, the Amazon, southern Europe, and much of the currently inhabited and arable land around the world in the second half of the century.
Brexit and Trumpism make plainly — and painfully — visible that even rich, democratic nations deal poorly with a moderate amount of refugees, immigration, and economic dislocation. Imagine how we’ll deal with the 100-fold escalation of those problems if we fail to stop catastrophic climate change.
Read more at What Brexit and Trump’s Rise Mean for the Global Community’s Fight Against Climate Change
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