US suffers world's first climate change exodus: study
Pastor Dale Morgan
Thursday August 17, 7:19 AM
*US suffers world's first climate change exodus: study*
The first mass exodus of people fleeing the disastrous effects of
climate change is not happening in low-lying Pacific islands but in the
world's richest country, a US study said.
"The first massive movement of climate refugees has been that of people
away from the Gulf Coast of the United States," said the Earth Policy
Institute, which has warned for years that climate change demands action
now.
Institute president Lester Brown said that about a quarter of a million
people who fled the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina a year ago
must now be classed as "refugees".
"Interestingly, the country to suffer the most damage from a hurricane
is also primarily responsible for global warming," he said.
The United States is the world's largest consumer of energy, but has
refused to sign up to the Kyoto pact aimed at reducing emissions of
gases that scientists say are to blame for heating up the Earth.
Many environmentalists had expected the first big population shift to
come somewhere like the Tuamotu islands in French Polynesia, the world's
largest chain of atolls which rise barely metres (feet) from the Pacific.
Rising sea levels are part of the problem afflicting low-lying places
but, experts argue, so are tropical storms that are mounting in ferocity
because of warmer ocean temperatures.
Brown said many thousands of people who evacuated last year as Katrina
slammed into New Orleans and other populated areas on the Mississippi
and Louisiana coasts had no intention of returning.
"We estimate that at least 250,000 of them have established homes
elsewhere and will not return," he said.
"They no longer want to face the personal trauma and financial risks
associated with rising seas and more destructive storms. These evacuees
are now climate refugees."
Many businesses have also deserted the coastal towns left ravaged by
Katrina as insurance and other costs soar, the study said.
"As rising seas and more powerful hurricanes translate into higher
insurance costs in these coastal communities, people are retreating
inland," Brown said.
"And just as companies migrate to regions with lower wages, they also
migrate to regions with lower insurance costs."
The study also warned: "The experience with more destructive storms in
recent years is only the beginning."
The institute said that since 1970, the Earth's average temperature has
risen by one degree Fahrenheit, but by 2100 it could rise by up to 10
degrees Fahrenheit (six degrees Celsius).
Rising temperatures could melt glaciers and polar ice caps, raising sea
levels and displacing coastal residents worldwide.
"The flow of climate refugees to date numbers in the thousands, but if
we do not quickly reduce CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions, it could one
day number in the millions," Brown said.
The institute's study classed "climate refugees" as part of a larger
group of people who have been forced from their homes by man-made
environmental change such as overgrazing.
"Overgrazing destroys the vegetation which leads then to local
sandstorms ... we are looking at growing flows of environmental refugees
in Africa, for example in Nigeria, Senegal, Mauritania or Kenya," Brown
told reporters.
Millions of people in northern and western China have abandoned their
villages as the land turns semi-arid because of overgrazing, the study said.
China is also the second biggest greenhouse-gas polluter after the
United States thanks to the voracious rise in coal, gas and oil
consumption to power its economic growth.
The booming port city of Shanghai could be at risk of flooding from more
ferocious typhoons linked to global warming as it is only a metre (three
feet) above sea level, Brown said.