Climate change equals more Mexican migration: study published in PNAS

[jpak]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66P5TP20100726

Continued climate change will drive Mexican farm workers to migrate to the United States in greater numbers, environmental experts predicted on Monday.

For every 10 percent of lost crop yields, 2 percent more Mexicans will leave and most will try to come to the United States, Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University in New Jersey and colleagues predicted.

The study touches on two extremely sensitive U.S. political issues -- immigration and climate change.

"It has been well established that farmers do tend to want to migrate when they are not doing so well," Oppenheimer said in a telephone interview.

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[dtexdem]

1. OK, Arizona, here's what you can do to prevent being 'invaded':

support cap and trade!

;-)

[jpak]

2. dots connected

:thumbsup:

[The Croquist]

3. Wow!

For every 10 percent of lost crop yields, 2 percent more Mexicans will leave and most will try to come to the United States

Since 10% of natural born Mexicans are already in the US that must mean that the crop yields of Mexico must be down 50% already!

What's that? Is it possible that Mexico is still producing enough food to feed their people? How can that be?

I know! It's because, like in all global warming "studies" the changes are going to come after the "scientists" retire.

[jpak]

4. NAFTA mortally wounded the Mexican small farm - and climate change will finish it off

and the study is correct - climate change will result in mass migration out of areas that cannot support agriculture.

"I know! It's because, like in all global warming "studies" the changes are going to come after the "scientists" retire."

anti-intelluctual horseshit...

yup!

[The Croquist]

6. anti-intellectual horseshit...

Is that like claiming that NAFTA resulted in a "giant sucking sound" of US jobs going to Mexico while millions of these same Mexicans crossed the border to take away the very jobs from US citizens that were shipped China because of NAFTA despite the minor detail that China wasn't a part of NAFTA?

Is that kind of like claiming that the fact that sea-level rise has averaged twice as much per year for the last 20,000 years as it's currently averaging?

Is that like ignoring the fact that 10% of native born Mexicans have illegally crossed into the US while Mexico hasn't decreased it's food production but claiming that a decrease in food production will force more Mexicans across the border?

Is it like claiming that Arizona needs to support Cap and Trade because it will cut down on the Mexican "invasion"?

[jpak]

7. NAFTA flooded the Mexican corn market with cheap US corn

Mexico's corn farmers see their livelihoods wither away / Cheap U.S. produce pushes down prices under free-trade pact

http://articles.sfgate.com/2006-07-31/news/17305067_1_corn-farmers-american-corn-corn-prices

Tending his sun-drenched half-acre cornfield, Jose Davila represents a part of Mexico that may fade away as the pressures of free trade intensify.

"I'm an antique," said the hunched 90-year-old farmer. "Who wants to work all day in the sun and earn so little? All the younger people now look for jobs in factories or construction. Either that, or they go to the United States."

The growing dilemma that Mexico's 2 million corn farmers face as the tariffs that protect them shrink under the North American Free Trade Agreement was an issue in this month's presidential election. And as the United States wrestles with already high levels of illegal immigration, some experts say the demise of Mexico's peasantry deserves serious U.S. attention.

"The Bush administration has sought to control immigration at the border, but that's virtually impossible," said Harley Shaiken, director of UC Berkeley's Center for Latin American Studies. "The beginnings of immigration are in the displacement of farmers in Mexico."

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So you are wrong

Furthermore, sea level during the Pleistocene rose and fell with the growth and decay of continental ice sheets - cherry picking data is an old anti-ientellectual denier scam that fools no one...

Here's the rise in Holocene sea level - the rapid rise in the early Holocene was the result of the melting of continetal ice sheets...t


Sea level rise over the last 200 years is due to anthropogenic global warming and the melting of remaning alpine glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet...





Anthropogenic Warming of Earth's Climate System

Sydney Levitus,1* John I. Antonov,1 Julian Wang,2 Thomas L. Delworth,3 Keith W. Dixon,3 Anthony J. Broccoli3

Science 13 April 2001: Vol. 292. no. 5515, pp. 267 - 270

ABSTRACT

We compared the temporal variability of the heat content of the world ocean, of the global atmosphere, and of components of Earth's cryosphere during the latter half of the 20th century. Each component has increased its heat content (the atmosphere and the ocean) or exhibited melting (the cryosphere). The estimated increase of observed global ocean heat content (over the depth range from 0 to 3000 meters) between the 1950s and 1990s is at least one order of magnitude larger than the increase in heat content of any other component. Simulation results using an atmosphere-ocean general circulation model that includes estimates of the radiative effects of observed temporal variations in greenhouse gases, sulfate aerosols, solar irradiance, and volcanic aerosols over the past century agree with our observation-based estimate of the increase in ocean heat content. The results we present suggest that the observed increase in ocean heat content may largely be due to the increase of anthropogenic gases in Earth's atmosphere.

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so you are wrong on both counts

[The Croquist]

8. Oh please!

First of all a loss of farm employment is a sign of progress not a problem. In 1790 about 90% of the labor force of the US were farmers. Today something like 5% of the labor force works on farms. I consider that a sign of progress. I am also a farmer (kind of). I own 22 acres of timber that will be cut and made into lumber as soon as housing rebounds.

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfarm4.htm

The fact that Mexico is experiencing the same issue is not a problem. The US managed to absorb the people displaced from farms due to automation and I'm sure that Mexico could as well if their government wasn't as corrupt as it is.

Tending his sun-drenched half-acre cornfield, Jose Davila represents a part of Mexico that may fade away as the pressures of free trade intensify.

A half acre? My croquet course is almost a half acre. You can't feed a family on a half acre let alone make money. That is a fact. Even the 40 acres and a mule that wasn't really promised during the civil war was 80 times as much.

"Cherry picking data is an old anti-intellectual denier scam that fools no one..."

20,000 years is cherry picking data? LOL. I point out 20,000 years of data and you accuse me of "cherry picking data"? Exactly what period of data would you qualify as not "cherry picking data"?

the rapid rise in the early Holocene was the result of the melting of Continental ice sheets

You are right but that is the point. Was this natural or caused by man? If sea-level rose faster then it is currently, how can you be so sure that todays sea-level rise has to be caused by man?

The results we present suggest that the observed increase in ocean heat content may largely be due to the increase of anthropogenic gases in Earth's atmosphere.

Wow! what a powerful statement. It says that we "suggest" that humans "may" be responsible for.

I'll tell you what "anti-intellectual" is. It is looking at a projection based on an unproven computer model that predicts either more or less sea-level rise then is currently happening but at the current level is half the the historic rate and claiming that it is "unprecedented". That is "anti-intellectual" and that is you.

[SteveM]

5. Certainly, long speculated, but how does the study account for W.O.D.?

The War on Drugs, Inc., in Mexico has resulted in a scorched-earth policy by the cartels along the Mexican side of the border; the better to allow a free-fire zone for drug smuggling. Even as some studies show that the number of Mexicans looking for work in the U.S. is shrinking, this "reverse" migration has been partially off-set by those literally fleeing the hyper-violence in Mexican cities, and now the villages and settlements in rural areas.

This may be a good study, but it appears the samples have been polluted by the W.O.D., and not accounted for.