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Faced With Rising Temperatures, People May Seek Asylum (axios.com)
Europe is already struggling to absorb an influx of refugees from war-torn Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Africa. Germany alone has taken in more than a million people since 2015. This wave of immigration has led to political upheaval, with the rise of right-wing political parties in Germany, Poland, Austria, and Hungary, among others. Now a new study, published in the journal Science, shows that the current surge in refugees may just be a preview of what's to come due in large part to global warming. From a report: At an average growing season temperature of about 68 Fahrenheit, which is the optimum one for agriculture, the number of applications for asylum was lowest. As the average temperature rose, so did the number of people from Somalia, Bangladesh and other warmer climate countries seeking asylum. But when cooler countries -- such as Serbia and Peru -- got warmer, fewer applications were received. The acceptance rate for asylum application to the EU is less than 10%. But when there was a spike in applications tied to weather fluctuations, the admittance rate rose to about 30%, suggesting agencies who evaluate the applicants find their cause worthy.
Would be useful if this were given some numerical context. How do the numbers of refugees due to climate compare to the numbers of refugees due to war and due to oppressive governments?
Is it really climate that drives people from Somalia or Bangladesh? Or is it instead the fact those countries are pretty unstable and people want to get to a more stable area?
Especially if you are talking refugees, and not simply immigration requests. "Refugee" implies something catastrophic they are fleeing, not slightly warmer weather.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Floors be COLD in the morning yall...
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
For Europe the enemy is already inside the gates.
Why don't they go to Siberia if heat is really their reason for migration?
Well, mostly crop failures are the reason for migration. Heat is the reason for crop failure, but it's the crop failures that are the reason people are forced to leave.
How much crops does Siberia grow?
It's absurd to call them "refugees".
Real refugees have 2 primary goals:
1) To reach the nearest location where the immediate danger they face is no longer present.
2) To return to their origin as soon as it is safe to do so.
In the case of Syrians, the locations matching those criteria would typically be within Syria itself. They could find safety without ever leaving the country.
In rare situations, some Syrians might find Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, or even Iraq to be closer. But that's as far as they'd ever need to go to reach safety, while still being able to return home as soon as possible.
There's absolutely no legitimate reason for any Syrian to have made the long journey to a Europe nation like Greece, never mind distant European nations like Germany, Sweden or the UK.
The same goes for anyone coming from Africa. At least Syrians can say there is something resembling a real war going on in their nation. That's not true for nearly all of the Africans. They conditions might not be good, but they're nothing like Syria.
It's even worse when it comes to those from Afghanistan, given how far away Afghanistan is from Europe.
Anyone traveling thousands upon thousands of miles to Europe, through numerous safe countries, and with no intent to ever leave Europe, is not a "refugee". They're illegal aliens, and that's exactly what they should be referred to as. They should also be immediately deported.
According to https://www.immigrationequalit...
An asylum seeker must prove that he or she has a well-founded fear of persecution based on one or more of five grounds:
Race
Religion
Nationality
Membership in a particular social group (Most LGBTQ individuals who apply for asylum qualify under this category)
Political opinion
They're not running away from slightly warmer weather, they're running away from the secondary effects of that warmer weather: Too much rain/not enough rain, crop losses due to higher temps
The truth is those factors alone are not enough to convince most people to move. Several years of bad crops and California farmers are still farming.
You aren't suffering from a lack of imagination, just a lack of understanding the overall conditions of the regions people are leaving. "Poor crop yield" is so far down the list it doesn't even register, and makes very little sense for some of the areas talked about (like Bangladesh).
In fact, it turns out that Bangladesh crop yields are going up, if you look at potatoes the output is up - in fact the real problem with crops this past year was not warmer weather, but flooding. Even so total agricultural production was up 2.9% overall, so why would people be refugees from Bangladesh based on crop yields when they are up?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Siberia is capable of grows lots of crops and also use to be a major beef producer. The problem now is because of political issues people moved away from farming there; on the good side that means there is lots of available land.
Faced with rejection of "refugees" from non-war-torn areas, we'll make importation of the new underclass more palatable by whining about, "But, but, it's warm where they're from!"
Real refugees have 2 primary goals 1) To reach the nearest location where the immediate danger they face is no longer present. 2) To return to their origin as soon as it is safe to do so.
In the case of Syrians, the locations matching those criteria would typically be within Syria itself. They could find safety without ever leaving the country.
I take it you know nothing about the Syrian crisis, then.
What place in Syria is it that you believe is "where the immediate danger they face is no longer present"? The few places within Syria that aren't in a war zone with boundaries that are constantly changing... are jammed to overflowing with the eight million people who are already displaced within Syria; the largest internally displaced population in the world. About six in ten Syrians are now refugees, most of them internally.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34189117
Yes, but those countries are relatively more stable when climate (and thus food production) are closer to historical norms. Instability drives migration, but food shortages drive instability and climate drives food shortages.
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The US per wikipedia has a total of about 12 million illegal immigrants.
Which were absorbed over a long period of time and who came to work for depressingly low wages. It wasn't 12 million all at once. Many of them have been here literally for decades. The total number of illegal immigrants in the US hasn't risen for about a decade and in fact has declined somewhat from the peak.
Migration has been a relatively minor problem for Europe.
It isn't a minor problem. It's not to the scale justifying any sort of panic but any time you get a million new refugees in a relatively short time frame that creates a lot of very real problems. These people need to be fed, sheltered, to find work and school, etc. This isn't a trivial undertaking by an measure. It's made worse of course by the inevitable racists and xenophobes who want to shut the borders to keep anyone different out.
>>...with the rise of right-wing political parties...
This is curious to me. Are these parties rising because they see their country and identity being overrun with immigrants, or are they on the rise because they see their country becoming a (perceived, rightly or wrongly) welfare state for foreigners, or is it something else?
The implication from the summary is it's due to climate shift, but I'm not so certain that's accurate.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Starvation is not a very ethical means of contraception. And yet that appears to be what you are advocating.
Come to Canada, we'll give you our snow! Just take it off our streets and it's yours!
#DeleteFacebook
Just as they were in the United States in the past when "those Jews/Irish/Chinese" were "flooding" in and going to destroy our country if we didn't keep them out. Our country was fine - and arguably better for absorbing new groups of people - and this "wave" of immigrants (in quotes because immigration is actually down) won't destroy our country either. However, racist xenophobes in the US might destroy our country in their efforts to protect us from those scary immigrants.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
it's because refugees aren't immigrants. They didn't move for a better life, they moved because they got kicked out. So they don't integrate with the host society. This is a big problem in Europe right now. It's giving their far right ammunition. It's also put the Jews in a bind as they're sandwiched between a far right that hates them and Muslim refugees that aren't exactly crazy about them either. Meanwhile demagogues are using all this social friction to rise to power.
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From your link, the headline:
"Bangladesh’s food production [i.e. in total] dropped by 943,000 tonnes in fiscal 2016-17"
"past year was not warmer weather, but flooding"
Yeh right, flooding, the predicted affect of global warming, so what's your point?
" so why would people be refugees from Bangladesh based on crop yields when they are up"
Because they're hungry, and your attempt to mislead people here by lying doesn't fill their stomachs. I mean really SuperKendall, were you hoping nobody would google the actual stats or read the link you provided?
You fail at basic math.
If each person working can produce enough food for 0.9 people, having a thousand times as many people will NOT help everyone suddenly not be hungry.
If there isn't enough food or capacity for growing enough food for everyone NOW, the solution is to have less people, not more.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
The die-off will not be televised... unless there's a useful boogeyman who can be blamed.
No, they *aren't* the reason for the migrations. The migrants themselves don't mention it and *do* mention better jobs, freedom, etc. The presumption of crop failure is injected by the GW factions simply to stir shit up.
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Don't quote a poem as a source of your national stance. That's just stupid. Stupid also is to let in those who vocally call for the destruction of your country, refuse to assimilate and *become* your neighbor and who actively call for *their* law (you know, from where they came) to replace *your* law.
Let's blame everything on climate change, because why not?
Good advice to those people.
Now, let's talk about everyone else, the people who don't live in those places. Let's say someone over there ignores your advice and brings children into the mix. What should you do about it?
Kill them? That would fix the problem.
Leave them alone, but kill them if they come to our, more-inhabitable area?
Let them migrate with all the same freedom that we have to migrate, and compete with them in a free market? (e.g. Me and my children might lose out and suffer the consequences of living in an uninhabitable area, because someone over there came and "took my job" so I have to move. But that's fair, because I had no more rights to this region of the world than anyone else, and my terms from birth were always "may the best man win" and I just happened to not measure up.)
Dump money into technological development and/or military force, to try to cause those less habitable places to become more habitable? (Thereby relieving the pressure on the people over there, to move over here.)
Fight against mysticism and anything else that persuades people to eschew birth control?
Something else? There are people over there with incentive to come here. They shouldn't make more people, but for whatever reason they do and we have to deal with the consequences that has on us. You can't just give "don't have kids" advice and then pretend that you magically got people to follow it. If they ignore your advice, you can blame them but that doesn't solve anything. You have to do something, or else accept the consequences of not doing something. You can't get out of it.
Republicans and Democrats have both shown they don't have a clue what to do. Do you?
There is no evidence that these "political left" people that you're talking about, have successfully made any credible move to shut down any discussion. If you are convinced that they have really tried to do this, then you must be laughing your ass off right now, since you know for sure that they definitely failed and didn't achieve even 1% of their goal. Because here we are, talking about it. Complete mission failure, "political left"!!
Therefore, what you just said is completely irrelevent. That's like someone is attacking an enemy infantry position with howitzers and the guy in charge of the artillery says "they are trying to train mosquitos to block the incoming artillery shells." It's a hilarious thing to say, but that's what you're saying. If someone is doing what you're saying they're doing, every single person knows that plan wouldn't ever have a chance of working even a little bit.
Maybe just stop worrying about it, and learn to enjoy their utterly futile attempts. Or accept that maybe you're wrong, and nobody is really trying to stop discussion, precisely because attempting to stop it is so futile. As you can see above, they didn't stop me. And I don't have some kind of magic keyboard. They didn't stop you, either.
Ok, here's the problem. We know for sure, without any speculation or guesswork or mysticism, that asking people to decrease their birth rates has failed. Past perfect tense, got it? This isn't something you're suggesting we try; it is a think we have tried but for some reason, we didn't get the result we wanted. They didn't take your "don't reproduce"
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I like how the early 1980s is repeating itself. Reagan was decried as an "idiot who would get us into a nuclear war" and the Japanese were buying up real estate left and right. Today, Trump is going to say Mean Things that will make him somehow responsible for the Norks going off the deep end and the Chinese are the ones buying property. We're going to be fine.
Well, while you are right, you can safely assume everyone in the world knows that 100F is body temperature ... so 68F is significantly below that.
Who cares if that is 19, 20 or 21 C
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Please feel free to point to a single refugee application in any country in the world where someone put down "I want to leave my country and come to yours because the weather in my country sucks!"...claiming you know that people are leaving an area due to 'climate change' is entire bullshit. Until or unless you can separate refugees leaving for entirely other man made reasons (war, dictatorships or other government control making life shitty) you have no way to claim any single person is leaving their country of birth due to 'climate'...
This is not to say that people won't migrate due to climate change, but attempting to suggest it is happening now or will happen in great numbers any time soon (2 to 3 decades) is a fools game and simply propaganda.
There is no comparison between Mexicans coming into the US, and Africans and Middle Easterners flooding into Western Europe.
Mexicans come for jobs and are productive. Many of them already have family here. A very large chuck of the US was once Mexico. Our nations are very intertwined.
The refugees in Europe on the other hand have zero context there. They are strangers, and immediately land in slums and start looking for handouts.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Sineria is very big.
So in the south you can frow crops.
In the north not so much.
As a Syrian I never would go into Siberia/Russia, as the Russians are the assholes behind Putin and Sadat.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Dude, by far most of the illegal immigrants in the US are Mexican. Much of them already have family here who have been here since the Mexican American War turned a gigantic chuck of Mexico into the American southwest. 30 million or so Americans have Mexican heritage. Mexico and the US share a lot of culture as well.
Plus, we are neighbors.
In Europe on the other hand, they are strangers. They are coming from afar, from strange lands. They have no family, no where to go but camps and start accepting government handouts. It is a shitshow that simply doesn't exist here even with our far greater numbers of migrants.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
In case if Syria, the reason is: war.
And the reason of that war is the failed US politics in Iraq and the resulting ISIS.
Plus: civil war in Syria as the population revolted partly against Sadadt.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
We only need to look to Sweden to see what happens when illegal aliens (commonly, and wrongly, referred to as "refugees" by some) are allowed to violate the borders of a civilized Western nation.=Sweden has seen a huge increase in grenade attacks, of all things, since the start of the illegal alien disaster around 2014. During 2015 and 2016 there was a grenade attack almost every week!
...and nevertheless, Sweden's murder rate, grenades and all, is less than a quarter the rate of America. The answer seems to be that despite all the refugees, if you're afraid of crime, you should flee America to go to the much safer Sweden.
Oh, and the rate of crime in Sweden hasn't changed over the last 20 years. Apparently the "illegal alien disaster" of refugees actually isn't the problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Ever notice how they're leaving all muslim countries that are by all accounts pretty shitty because they're sharia'd lawed up and then they pass through moderately wealthy Muslim places like Turkey, UAE, Saudi Arabia and still go to Europe?
It's because they're looking for handouts from the overly generous European welfare programs and don't want to work.
I don't blame them. If Europe is that stupid to give out free money without any plan to get you on your feet that's their own fault.
They want to let all the migrants in and then raise our taxes to pay for their benefits.
In truth wealthy donors to both D and R like cheap labor and thus we allow in millions of immigrants. Compounded by the Democrats lusting over poor immigrants who tend to vote Democrat. Thus both parties are fine letting in literally millions of immigrants and their families (and extended families) for various reasons. The fact that it hurts average citizens by way of lowering wages, increasing housing and traffic issues, crowding schools, and bringing in crime and gangs are all overlooked by the wealthy ruling class and their benefactors. After all their kids attend private schools and they live in safe gated communities. If you disagree you will be called a racist as a way of shutting you up.
Have you seen the Daily Mail song?
Unfortunately media hasn't entirely caught on to this yet but a lot of refugees flooding into Europe are actually from Africa and it isn't because of war. This has unfortunately been going on for more years than when things blew up in Syria. Basically there are places in Africa who haven't seen rain in years and farmers who are unable to grow anything. Folks might argue California has suffered the same but folks are forgetting that these folks weren't "rich" farmers to begin with and there's no social safety net. Unfortunately it's also these same countries that have seen the rise of ISIS as well. When you can't make money, don't have food or water and your family's starving and it looks like you're going to die from starvation or thirst, radical religions which give you a sliver of hope starts to sound unfortunately sane.
No, I'm european.
An american would never be as arrogant as I am, he simply would assume that every country outside is a 3rd world country and uses Farenheit as well.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
It's either starvation or actual contraception, which the right can't get behind because it would upset the "every sperm is sacred" crowd. So they ignore the contraception option...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
so says ANONYMOUS hiding are we?
The real punchline here is that nobody has a clue of what climate change will really bring. In fact, it may make areas that are currently deserts into lush, tropical paradises. And where the people are flocking to now could become deserts.
If you provide passage to rich countries that will give you food, water, and housing for free X immigrants will always come, were X is the carrying capacity of the TRANSPORTATION.
There has always been war and there are billions of starving people every day. The only reason we have immigrants is because we have people pushing for immigration and many of them providing transportation. The wars and famine just get in the way of this and slow it down.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I don't know about zero context. Many of these countries use European languages because of past colonial activity.
It seems to me that Europe has some reparations it should make for the colonial era still and in return they get to do a more gentle export of their culture. If Europe wants to stem the flood of immigrants it can always put more effort into making life better for people in situ. Help them with farming tech, sponsor education. There's really no good reason why Africa should be abandoned.
Nullius in verba
A person fleeing their own nation should seek a nation with their own faith and culture.
Not too many changes and the laws and faith share something in common their own nation.
If the West needs workers short term why not look for the best workers other more advanced nations have to offer? Why just accept lot of very random people with no skills that will need looking after for generations?
If all the USA wanted good workers why not bring in legal guest workers who are educated from nations that have something in common with the USA?
Good people who share common democratic values and who want to work in the USA.
Many nations have educated people who speak english and who share US values.
People who really like Americana and would like to work in the USA.
They have passports are real and they understand that they will be guest workers in the USA for a set time.
Their governments function and can ensure the person who has the passport is the person who is getting into the USA.
No problems with a faith that hates the West, lack of english, no having to support lots of new random people with average IQ of 85 or lower.
Guest workers with jobs to fill in the USA would solve problems with the short term jobs market legally.
In the long term educate people in the USA without jobs who can work in the USA to fill the jobs.
No random migrants needed. Use guest workers that are educated for the work in the USA and then focus on educating people all over the USA.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I really don't like Trump but he is right on with the fake news bit. This could be one of the most ridiculous climate change stories ever.
i didnt say they are getting what they wanted. just what they wanted.
perversly i live in a country where Muslims are terrified to exist, because they were all recently genocided.
which sounds like what you want....
I like how the early 1980s is repeating itself.
Speaking as someone who was around during the early 80s that statement is nonsensical. The political environment today bears almost no resemblance to the one in the early 80s. If you think it does then you either have a very selective memory or you weren't there.
Reagan was decried as an "idiot who would get us into a nuclear war" and the Japanese were buying up real estate left and right.
It is true that there was a lot of angst about Japan during the 80s but your assertion about Reagan was not widely held outside of a few far left kooks. Bear in mind that the Cold War was in full swing so Reagan building up our military substantially did bring a lot of justifiable concern about how the Soviets would respond. But love him or hate him, Reagan bore little resemblance to Trump and he certainly was a more decent human being and a far better president than Trump. (I say this as someone who doesn't particularly like Reagan or his politics) Trump is easily the least competent and worst performing president during my lifetime and that includes Nixon and W.
Today, Trump is going to say Mean Things that will make him somehow responsible for the Norks going off the deep end and the Chinese are the ones buying property. We're going to be fine.
China is a different animal than Japan. Japan is a smaller country than the US with limited natural resources. China has around 4X the people the US has and comparable natural resources. Japan has sort of reached a natural limit on their ability to grow. China has the second largest economy in the world and they have a HUGE amount of room to grow. All other things being equal one one expect China to be the dominant force the in the world economy. Yes the US will probably be fine but baring some catastrophe China is going to make a much bigger splash than Japan could ever hope to.
As for Trump, I think it is a very real concern that he does or says something stupid to get us into another shooting war needlessly. He clearly doesn't understand or have the patience to learn the intricacies of foreign policy. He already has managed to get the UN General Assembly to condemn his policy on Jerusalem. He also seems depressingly enthusiastic to get a fight started on the Korean peninsula which will be a huge problem if the shells start flying.
In your fantasy world, the Religious Right still has firm control of the Republican Party.
The rest of us have moved on. Like Trump or not, he is the leader of the GOP right now and he's not a bible thumper. Its one of the best things about him being elected. Another is that in the Election Process he killed both the Bush and the Clinton dynasties.
Firm control? No, but an essential part of control, certainly. Trump or not, the Republicans can't afford to lose the support of the religious right. They need every vote they can get, on top of the electoral college advantage and gerrymandering, to retain power with a minority of voters supporting them. Politically, the Republicans are living on reclaimed land and a break in any part of any dam will let in a tidal wave of leftism. They've been very lucky that the religious right has been able to look past the fact that the candidate they were given to vote for is a human avatar of sinful behavior compared to the typical politician, and they'd be wise not to strain their support further.
Look at the VP pick, why pick an ultra-homophobic pious theocrat if not to please the religious right?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel