A few years ago, I was fortunate to catch Sebastião Salgado’s exhibition Migrations, a photodocumentary survey of human population movement. Many of the photos showed strong but desperate people far from home and clueless to what the future might hold for them. Salgado captured the indominable human spirit, but also the pathos of the journey migrants face when they leave — most likely are forced to leave — their native lands.In addition to the difficulty migrants face when they are uprooted from their homes, there is the added complication of the effect of thousands of people settling in a new country or region. Already pressed for resources, areas receiving the migrants are hard-pressed to find solutions to the sudden increase in population. Once sustainable economic models may rapidly be found to be untenable with the changing circumstances.The International Organization for Migration, a Swiss intergovernmental organization established in 1951, has just released a policy brief Migration, Climate Change and the Environment, which documents the effect migration is having and is expected to have on the environment. The report states that global climate change is having a clear effect on migration as vital resources diminish and human populations are forced to seek them elsewhere. A widely-cited study indicates up to 200 million people could be on the move due to environmental factors by 2050.What will be the result of all of this movement? Will resource-rich areas be able to absorb the migrating populations with minimal difficulty or will the sudden inflow of environmental refugees overwhelm the resource-rich areas, leading to a potential prolonged struggle for access to those resources by heterogeneous populations?We must transform how people think about the environment and environmentalism. We are no longer looking solely at questions of local conservation, endangered species, or human health. Global climate change is altering the very foundations of human societies and resource management. It is imperative we continue to address the human-related causes of global climate change and raise awareness of its drastic effects upon the whole of humanity.
Posts Tagged: Global climate change
February 16, 2009 by Jordan Erdos
Flight or Fright?
An editorial in today’s New York Times indicates that, according to the Audubon Society, there is an enormous population shift taking place among many bird species. The boreal chickadee, for example, has moved 280 miles north from its natural habitat and the marbled murrelet has moved 360 miles north of its natural habitat. In fact, according to the study, nearly 60% of the 305 species found in North America in winter have shifted their ranges northward by an average of 35 miles.There is little doubt that these population shifts are due to the changing global climate, resulting from greenhouse gases captured in the earth’s atmosphere. While some of these bird species are able to adapt easily to the changing conditions, ultimately many species may be harmed as they migrate further and further away from their natural habitat.The evidence for global climate change is irrefuteable; the time to act is now. Responsible for over 1/5 of the carbon dioxide (the primary greenhouse gas) in our atmosphere, destruction of the world’s forests must be slowed. In addition to releasing all of the carbon stored in trees, the forests provide a home to many of the world’s animal and plant species. It is time to stop the destruction and find solutions to keep the forest standing.
For a complete copy of the Audubon report, click here.
January 27, 2009 by Jordan Erdos
Paying the cost to be the boss
The New York Times reported today that a battle is heating up (pun intended) over the Obama administration’s global climate change policy. On the one side are the East Coast states and California, which have been leading the country in environmental regulation, and on the other are the Midwest and Plains States, which are dependent upon coal and manufacturing – leading contributors of the CO2 emissions that lead to climate change. Full story.President Obama’s insistence on addressing global climate change, as promised during his campaign, is a refreshing change and an encouraging step forward. While recent polls indicate that environmental issues register fairly low on the national priority list of most Americans, these are nevertheless issues that we must continue to tackle whether the global economy is hearty or at a standstill.Given the contentiousness of focusing upon manufacturing and coal emissions, perhaps the Obama administration would be better off turning its attention to an area that is responsible for 20% of all carbon emissions worldwide — the destruction of the world’s forests. One important manner in which the United States could have an impact in this area would be in promoting tropical hardwood certification. By certifying that tropical hardwoods have been harvested in an environmentally-friendly and sustainable manner, we could provide American consumers with information that would allow them to make purchasing decisions based upon their effects upon the environment. Rather than contribute further to the conditions that lead to global climate change, consumers may be made aware of the effect of their consumption decisions.Certification is just one way of raising consumer consciousness. If we are to truly begin to address carbon issues, we must all become more aware of our personal impact upon the globe. The next time you are shopping for food or household goods, take a moment to consider where those goods are coming from and how they have arrived in your local store. Often the price on the tag does not reflect the true cost of the product.
