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Climate Refugees Pt. 2

Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby Lore » Mon 09 May 2016, 17:38:54

Timo wrote:
Lore wrote:Logic says the poor people of the planet Earth will not be going anywhere. Let alone someplace less hospitable then the one we are making here.

Never underestimate the power of humans to defy logic.


And usually to no benefit of said species.
The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby Timo » Mon 09 May 2016, 17:42:48

I won't argue with that!

Que sera, sera.
Whatever will be, will be.
The future's not ours to see.
Que sera, sera.
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby Lore » Mon 09 May 2016, 17:44:22

Timo wrote:I won't argue with that!

Que sera, sera.
Whatever will be, will be.
The future's not ours to see.
Que sera, sera.


Thank you, Doris Day! :)
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Re: Will the "North" shoot on Climate Refugees soon?!

Unread postby M_B_S » Thu 02 Jun 2016, 10:50:17

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmqOlxNQABI

Storming Spain's Razor-Wire Fence:

Europe Or Die
VICE News

The climate storm is coming and we have to shoot soon ?!

There is allways a physikal limit := 2000 kcal/capita+day

It is not negotiable
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby Timo » Mon 13 Jun 2016, 12:07:09

I'm curious on other people's perspectives, borrowing (extending) from the 21st Century Perspectives thread, about the current refugee crisis in MENA. We all know about the Taliban and ISIS, and even Russian and US interventions in that entire area. It seems that no matter who does what, things just get worse and worse, resulting in a mass exodus from the entire region.

The answer to my question, i'm sure, is a matter of degrees, but the question itself is, what's the underlying primary driver of the mass exodus? Is the religious violence being inflicted on the local populations the cause, or a symptom of a larger problem that stems from the carrying capacity of the region in the first place? In other words, is the MENA physically capable of supporting its current population levels? Could the religious violence be the perfect and valid excuse necessary for the existing population to pack up and leave an ecologically unsustainable environment? To what degree is the inability of the ecological environment responsible (if at all) for the rise of religious extremism? I know that the religious extremism is expanding world-wide, but its primary foothold is firmly entrenched in the MENA. The religious extremism and violence may be simply the fastest method of abandoning a geographic area that's physically incapable of supporting its population.

Is this question/idea full of s it?
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby dohboi » Mon 13 Jun 2016, 12:24:55

"is the MENA physically capable of supporting its current population levels?"

Yes, obviously. Egyptian population increased fourfold in as many decades, iirc. And Yemen and other places followed a similar trajectory. Oil revenues largely allowed for this, and now that is going away.
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby Timo » Mon 13 Jun 2016, 13:47:30

dohboi wrote:"is the MENA physically capable of supporting its current population levels?"

Yes, obviously. Egyptian population increased fourfold in as many decades, iirc. And Yemen and other places followed a similar trajectory. Oil revenues largely allowed for this, and now that is going away.

Population increases and the ecological stability of any geographic area are not necessarily mutually compatible. Would you expand that same rationale for the entire planet? Our planet's current population consumes for times the earth's ability to replace it's natural resources, and our population keeps rising. Some areas are depleting faster than others. MENA might be just the beginning of a much larger, world-wide trend. I have no doubt that the world could adequately provide for a much smaller population. Ditto for MENA, but our populations keep rising despite the carrying capacity of our individual biospheres.

Can MENA continue to feed themselves under current population trends? Do they have enough water to drink and sustain themselves? How much of the exodus of population is due to environmental factors, and how much is due to religious extremism and violence? Is religious extremism and violence at all a symptom of reduced ecological carrying capacity?
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby Ibon » Mon 13 Jun 2016, 15:18:18

Timo wrote: In other words, is the MENA physically capable of supporting its current population levels? Could the religious violence be the perfect and valid excuse necessary for the existing population to pack up and leave an ecologically unsustainable environment?


Two comments.

1) Ahead of the actual physical constraints on carrying capacity we will see symptoms dominating. In this way I think MENA and most of the world for that matter is or will mask the underlying ecological origins of instabilities with man made conflicts first. This is one of the challenges of culturally ever being able to self regulate because the ecological origins are hiding underneath the symptoms that take the form of war, conflict, economic recessions, migration, ethnic genocide, etc .etc.

2) The carrying capacity of MENA is artificially maintained due to oil and food imports. Remember Monte's signature line:
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby vox_mundi » Mon 13 Jun 2016, 16:06:27

Climate change could trigger tropical evacuations, researchers advise

Image

Global warming by just 2 degrees Celsius is likely to force some tropical plant, animal and human populations to relocate hundreds of miles from their current homes this century, according to research published today in the journal Scientific Reports.

Even under these modest climate changes, considered "optimistic" compared to business-as-usual forecasts, the authors found that population movements could be dramatic. The tropics, they said, are unique in this extreme response to limited warming.

Solomon Hsiang, Chancellor's Associate Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and Adam Sobel, a professor of applied physics and math at Columbia University, foresee dramatic population declines in Mexico, Central America, Africa, India and other tropical locales if ecosystems or humans move due to climate change.

In their analysis, the pair used a model to demonstrate how climate dynamics in the tropics can dramatically magnify the consequences of climate change as it is experienced on the ground. This means even small climate changes can have dramatic impacts.

"We're not making specific predictions about migration patterns of individual species, but the geophysical constraint is that, as the tropics get hotter, you'll have to go far, essentially leaving the tropics, to cool off," said Sobel.

Because the tropics are uniformly hot, when things get hotter by just a small amount, populations will have to move far to find relief.

Hsiang explains it with an analogy: "Imagine you have a fixed budget you can spend on your apartment and rents are the same throughout your entire neighborhood. If all the rents go up, even by just a little bit, you might have to move very far to find a new place you can afford."

The researchers report that some oceanic and continental populations would have to move as far as 1,000 miles or more to stay within their "temperature budget."

Where do those populations end up? Simulations by the authors suggest the cooler edges of the tropics could get crowded, where populations might theoretically climb by 300 percent or higher.

At those densities, disease and conflict over resources, among other issues, would bring their own complications.


"Another real problem arises when populations can't move, but instead have to stay put and suffer the consequences of a new climate," Hsiang said. "This can happen when human migrants run into political borders or when species physically can't move fast enough." The recent catastrophic bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef is an example of the latter.

Solomon M. Hsiang et al. Potentially Extreme Population Displacement and Concentration in the Tropics Under Non-Extreme Warming, Scientific Reports (2016).
Last edited by vox_mundi on Mon 13 Jun 2016, 16:14:11, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby dohboi » Mon 13 Jun 2016, 16:07:40

Sorry, Timo. I was reading too fast and read 'incapable' instead of your 'capable.'
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby Timo » Mon 13 Jun 2016, 16:22:18

Ibon wrote:Ahead of the actual physical constraints on carrying capacity we will see symptoms dominating. In this way I think MENA and most of the world for that matter is or will mask the underlying ecological origins of instabilities with man made conflicts first. This is one of the challenges of culturally ever being able to self regulate because the ecological origins are hiding underneath the symptoms that take the form of war, conflict, economic recessions, migration, ethnic genocide, etc .etc.

What are the odds that humanity (or any portion thereof) will be able to unmask the underlying ecological origins of instabilities?

Stupid question. Portions of humanity have already unmasked the underlying origins of ecological instabilities.

Better question would be, what's the threshold of acceptance of the underlying ecological origins of instabilities necessary before humanity collectively decides to begin efforts at mitigation?

All current efforts are too little, too late. BAU continues in spite of itself.
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby Timo » Mon 13 Jun 2016, 16:24:50

dohboi wrote:Sorry, Timo. I was reading too fast and read 'incapable' instead of your 'capable.'

The question is applicable using either word.
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby RaniDay » Tue 14 Jun 2016, 12:35:16

I thought Yemen would be the first country to run out of water. I read that that was predicted to happen in 2017, but I looked it up today and found an article from a few days ago that seems to indicate they will run out of food this year...

http://news.trust.org/item/20160610060404-o8d55
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby Timo » Tue 14 Jun 2016, 13:08:46

That's a shame for Yemen. They have good coffee, too. Some farmers actually let the fruit remain on the tree until it dies up, rather than picking it at peak ripeness.

As far as running out of food goes, i suppose their war has something to do with that. How much? Dunno.

Without any food or water to sustain any viable population, what the heck are they fighting over, anyway?
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby dohboi » Tue 14 Jun 2016, 17:50:17

Timo:

"Can MENA continue to feed themselves under current population trends?"

Probably not.

" Do they have enough water to drink and sustain themselves?"

Probably not.

"How much of the exodus of population is due to environmental factors, and how much is due to religious extremism and violence?"

Very hard to untangle those threads and come up with quantifications for them. There's always been religious extremists and violence. The question is why those have now become so severe that people are being driven from their homes by them?

"Is religious extremism and violence at all a symptom of reduced ecological carrying capacity?" No, but probably, as just implied, the increased intensity of those now is at least partly because of ecological collapse in the region. This has been documented in, for instance, Somalia, where the brutal instability and civil war was preceded by a 'loss' (raped by foreign corporations) of the landscape which used to be about 40% forested and is now only about 1% forested. Forests hold the soil and regulate run off and even local climate. Take away the forest and you take away the ability of people to live.
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Tue 14 Jun 2016, 18:11:05

There is a hard truth that is going to be understood here before much longer. That is regardless of any actions both negative or positive by European or American governments that the population of the Middle East and North Africa exceeds the carrying capacity of the land. As countries run out of oil to export they will no longer be able to pay for the import of food ,water etc. that they need to survive. The excess population will try to emigrate to more prosperous regions. Europe and the USA primarily but the declining economies of all possible destinations will force the people there to adopt lifeboat ethics and close their borders. That means that millions will die at the borders or where they came from. This is going to happen and there is nothing anybody can do about it. Any effort to share the pain will result only in your own country sharing the deaths.
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby ralfy » Tue 14 Jun 2016, 19:17:46

Some more points to consider:

Prosperity for several rich countries consists mostly of numbers in hard drives. The same goes for most of the financial elite that controls the global economy as well as the middle class. In addition, more of that wealth is ultimately maintained and created only by increasing sales of goods and services to developing economies.

Effects of climate change in some parts of the world can affect other parts due to the presence of a global economy:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ene ... the-world/

Thus, even those who imagine that they will be isolated from these problems will be affected. This may be reinforced by much of the wealth held by the prosperous vaporizing.

Military and police forces require oil and the same global economy to control not only weaker countries but their own borders. Given crises amplifying each other, they will likely form internal borders as well, controlling local resources for their use. Thus, what affects refugees may also affect local citizens.
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby onlooker » Tue 14 Jun 2016, 19:45:48

Basically, Ralfy what you are describing is counter globalization or localization. So, as we focus further into the future, the entire globalization fabric will be destroyed. Each locality will be able to sustain itself and its local population only if actual resources allow it. The money system is already totally divorced from reality and not serving the want or even needs of the great majority of people on this planet. Within this collapsing dynamic we will certainly see the military and police playing a more active role. All efforts will be directed at maintaining flows of energy for that is what allows the ruling class to both rule and stay above the masses. For via energy one can maintain a formidable fighting force and thus the ability to project power and quell any opposition to the ruling class. We are seeing the first stages of the disintegration of the modern economic system and interrelated economic activity. The US military is in the Middle East above all to safeguard its interests in the Oil and Nat. Gas there. In the meantime at home laws and policies have been put in place and activated to control the populace.
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby Ibon » Tue 14 Jun 2016, 21:17:10

vtsnowedin wrote:There is a hard truth that is going to be understood here before much longer. That is regardless of any actions both negative or positive by European or American governments that the population of the Middle East and North Africa exceeds the carrying capacity of the land. As countries run out of oil to export they will no longer be able to pay for the import of food ,water etc. that they need to survive. The excess population will try to emigrate to more prosperous regions. Europe and the USA primarily but the declining economies of all possible destinations will force the people there to adopt lifeboat ethics and close their borders. That means that millions will die at the borders or where they came from. This is going to happen and there is nothing anybody can do about it. Any effort to share the pain will result only in your own country sharing the deaths.


I agree. We need to understand that religious extremism for example will be on the rise if the home countries where this is bred continues to suffer these consequences of ecological overshoot.

There develops an identity of disenfranchisement that the population of MENA will experience far into the future. You can close the borders but you cant seal off this identity from spreading. We have to recognize that we are in for a very long chapter of ecological overshoot being masked as this will aggravate destabilizing forces like religious extremism.
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Re: The resettling begins

Unread postby dohboi » Tue 14 Jun 2016, 23:02:13

to add to r and ol's excellent points...
it is mostly the West that has historically benefited from the oil these countries are now running out of to export.

So it is only a kind of cosmic justice that the excess population that resulted from our far larger benefit end up on our shores...

These are the kinds of actual "hard truths" that the like of vt (and most of the main stream of Western society) will never bring themselves to accept...hard truths are by their very nature just too, too...hard...for some to ever in their lives fully accept...

But that is exactly what they are, my hearties....

very

hard

truths
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