nmap
03-10-2008, 20:41
I came across this article, which predicts mass migrations in the future. I recognize that global warming is still disputed, and that some highly respected people question the model. On the other hand, increased food prices and record lows for global grain stocks may cause such developments irrespective of the validity of the global warming theory. I would suppose that famine would motivate population moves. (But is that supposition valid?)
That said, it seems to me that the situation would represent an interesting shuffling of the strategic deck. But all of you know more about such things than I; I would very much like to see your thoughts on the matter.
In its half-century history, the EU has absorbed wave upon wave of immigrants. There were the millions of political migrants fleeing Russian-imposed communism to western Europe throughout the cold war, the post-colonial and "guest worker" migrants who poured into western Europe in the boom years of the 1950s and 60s, the hundreds of thousands who escaped the Balkan wars of the 90s and the millions of economic migrants of the past decade seeking a better life.
Now, according to the EU's two senior foreign policy officials, Europe needs to brace itself for a new wave of migration with a very different cause - global warming. The ravages already being inflicted on parts of the developing world by climate change are engendering a new type of refugee, the "environmental migrant".
Within a decade "there will be millions of environmental migrants, with climate change as one of the major drivers of this phenomenon," predict Javier Solana and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU's chief foreign policy coordinator and the European commissioner for external relations. "Europe must expect substantially increased migratory pressure."
They point out that some countries already badly hit by global warming are demanding that the new phenomenon be recognised internationally as a valid reason for migration.
LINK to article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/10/climatechange.eu)
That said, it seems to me that the situation would represent an interesting shuffling of the strategic deck. But all of you know more about such things than I; I would very much like to see your thoughts on the matter.
In its half-century history, the EU has absorbed wave upon wave of immigrants. There were the millions of political migrants fleeing Russian-imposed communism to western Europe throughout the cold war, the post-colonial and "guest worker" migrants who poured into western Europe in the boom years of the 1950s and 60s, the hundreds of thousands who escaped the Balkan wars of the 90s and the millions of economic migrants of the past decade seeking a better life.
Now, according to the EU's two senior foreign policy officials, Europe needs to brace itself for a new wave of migration with a very different cause - global warming. The ravages already being inflicted on parts of the developing world by climate change are engendering a new type of refugee, the "environmental migrant".
Within a decade "there will be millions of environmental migrants, with climate change as one of the major drivers of this phenomenon," predict Javier Solana and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU's chief foreign policy coordinator and the European commissioner for external relations. "Europe must expect substantially increased migratory pressure."
They point out that some countries already badly hit by global warming are demanding that the new phenomenon be recognised internationally as a valid reason for migration.
LINK to article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/10/climatechange.eu)