What's A Climate Refugee? Am I Going To Be One?

A Climate Refugee is anyone who has to leave home because of problems due to Climate Change. You remember all those people forced out of their homes by Hurricane Katrina in football stadiums along with hundreds of other people. They aren't the only Climate Refugees. 

Entire islands have sunk beneath the rising ocean waters. Everyone on these islands had to leave their homes to survive. I posted about one of these islands and its people - Tuvalu and the Tuvaluans. The mostly emigrated to New Zealand. The New Zealanders welcomed them to the largest, safe nearby body of land. 

Over 180 villages in my state, Alaska, are going under the ocean as it rises. Two of them were already scheduled to be evacuated. There are still people left on both islands, Shishmaref and Kivalina. Breakwaters were built for both island in an attempt to delay the evacuations. The breakwater worked for Shishmaref, but not for Kivalina. 

Some people have already left both islands. Some of them had no choice because their homes were already destroyed by the rising ocean waters.

Another big cause of climate refugees is drought or loss of water for survival needs and agriculture. This is happening all over the world. 

Drought also causes forest fires that are worse than ever before. Many climate refugees are forced out of their homes because of fires.

We all know about Tsunamis and the refugees who had to leave because the Tsunami in Japan caused the nuclear power plant failures. We can expect more of these, some in the United States. 

Not all of the US nuclear power plants that are at risk of failure due to climate change because of Tsunamis. There is at least one that is vulnerable to higher record-setting floods than have already happened. Since we can expect weather records to continue to be set for the rest of the lives of everyone on earth now, and beyond, we can expect to get floods that will destabilize nuclear power plants.

The people who run these nuclear power plants are not admitting the vulnerability of their power plants. I can only guess this is due to money. In case these nuclear power plant operators are not risking another worse than Fukushima Daichi disaster out of greed, my next guess is even worse. They may want lots of people to die.

There is a huge granite memorial in Georgia, in the USA called, "The Georgia Guidestones". It was commissioned by an unknown wealthy man who paid for it and disappeared. It does not spell it out that some people want lots of other people to die, but it says that the world population should be maintained at 500,000,000. Since we are way over that population figure, that means they want the rest of us gone.

Some people intend to avert the increase in climate change that will cause the extinction of the human race. They will do this by killing off enough of the human race to leave their close friends and slaves and themselves with plenty.

This is not a complete list of the causes of people who are and will be, forced to leave home because of climate change. I am just trying to get my Dear Readers to become aware that this will be a growing problem that must be attended to without our normal human delay.

Even if you are not personally forced from your home because of climate change in your lifetime, you will be affected by it.

Humans Fouling Our Nest With Climate Change

It is possible to use the strong instinctive desire of a dog to avoid pooping in its own bed to toilet train the dog. You use the dog's crate as a bed for the dog and shut the dog into the crate when you want the dog to not poop. You let the dog out to it's toilet area when you do want the dog to poop. The dog will hold it until it is allowed out of it's bed/crate.


It is too bad humans can not be trained by the same methods. Maybe it is because we think our bed is too big. We think we own the whole planet so we poop all over it. This is both a literal and a metaphorical truth. 


In the literal version, we have laws in many places restricting where one may dispose of human wastes in relation to their location near drinking water. Since human E Coli is found in drinking water in supposedly pristine wilderness areas, humans are ignoring these laws. The laws would not be necessary if we had and used instincts, like those that make crate toilet training helpful for dogs.


The metaphorical version of humans pooping all over the planet is the damage that humans as a group, have done to the earth. 


Let us count the ways we have done this.


We have changed the climate system of an entire planet that we need to live on. If you want to argue about this, ask most scientists on the planet. Only a few who have either been bribed or are expecting their investments in climate damaging technologies to pay them disagree with this. 


Another thing you can do if you still have any questions about human involvement in climate change is come to visit Alaska. We have the most rapid rate of climate change on earth. We have over 180 villages that will be drowned by rising ocean waters. Two of these villages were supposed to have already been evacuated. The names of these villages are Shishmaref and Kivalina. They have sites on the internet to raise money to try to save their villages. 


If you want to vicariously enjoy watching disasters,  the two aformentioned Alaskan villages have videos of their buildings falling into the ocean. The villagers in these two villages do not want to leave and are still trying to find ways to stay. 


Protective breakwaters are one way the villagers are trying to save their villages. In Kivalina this is not working, because they do not have a good place to put a breakwater and the one they tried to make fell apart right away. In Shishmaref they did better with their breakwater. It stayed up so far, and is protecting their village for a while longer. Their entire island is very low, so even the breakwater will not work for long.


There are a lot more climate changes in Alaska and I believe I will post about some of them. I think it is a good idea to make up somewhat for ex-governors of Alaska who claim that climate change does not exist.

Plan Ahead For Lots Of Climate Change Refugees

If even the low estimates of the numbers of people who will be displaced by rising ocean waters are correct we will have over 25% of the world's people affected. That is more refugees than have been created in history. 


Some of the climate change refugees will be able to find homes in their own countries. Some of them will not. The rest of the world that is not driven from their homes by rising oceans, will have to take in some of the climate change refugees.


New Zealand has already done this with some Pacific Island people whose whole island already went under the ocean. I met some of these people in New Zealand. 


They are from Tuvalu and their island is under water entirely most of the year. For about two months during the summer, part of their island is above water. 


The New Zealanders took them into their country. New Zealand was the nearest safe body of land for the people from Tuvalu. New Zealand took in all of the Tuvaluans that wanted to move there. 


It was a small island with only a few people, but soon there will be many more people whose homes will be gone, under the ocean. They will need places to live. It is time for the rest of the world to start facing this and planning what they will do. I hope it will be like it was after the Vietnam war and many countries volunteered to take some of the refugees in.


There are 180 Alaskan villages that will be destroyed by rising oceans. Alaska is making plans to help the displaced villagers. I think the plans are inadequate for the number of people who will become climate refugees, but at least some planning is taking place for them. 


The people of the world need to make plans for how they will help the enormous numbers of climate refugees created in the future. 


The uncertainty of the exact numbers that will be affected makes this a bad thing to leave to politicians. It is usually the nature of politicians to delay handling problems and try to pass them on to other politicians who will replace them as they leave office.


Many churches in my area sponsored refugee families after the Vietnam war. They helped them find places to live and jobs. They taught them English and how to fit into American society. 


This may be a way to help take care of climate change refugees too.