An extremely difficult issue, but one that probably needs to be discussed.

[burythehatchet]

If you believe as I do that the effects of global warming are exacerbating climactic events on the planet, and

If you believe that this is going to lead to more and more floods, hurricanes, droughts, fires, etc.

Then we should begin a discussion on whether certain parts of the planet are deemed to be inhabitable, do we relocate the residents on a planetary and coordinated basis? or do we let them decide what to do with the understanding that aid resources simply are not going to be there because for one thing war will never end.

By the way, I believe Al Gore will be the leader of the free world during most of our lifetimes.

[Yael]

1. Not realistic

People live where their jobs are.

We map out flood zones, fire zones, hurricane zones, earthquake zones and tornado zones -- and people choose to take the risk.

Besides, who is going to buy the houses? ;-)

[burythehatchet]

2. I understand - but then we should be clear that there will be tragedies

of significant proportions and great loss of life.

[Yael]

3. No question. But who could have imagined just a month ago

that Atlanta metro would be 3 months from bone dry and that the bottom 1/3 of California would be engulfed in an uncontrollable fire?

[burythehatchet]

12. Who could have imagined? Lots of people. Expect of course our R leadership

[Yael]

14. Now you just aren't making any sense.

Because (R)s are in power, you want to relocate the entire planet to <insert location yet to be determined>?

I am really not following you on this.

[Yupster]

22. Bangladesh should probably be first

to be relocated.

What are they? 150-200 million people living at 3 feet of altitude?

[burythehatchet]

24. and every 12 or so years many thousands lose their lives.

If we know the frequency of the event is increasing, what should we do, if anything?

[bobbolink]

8. That's true of muddleclass people. Poor people don't HAVE choices...

for the most part, we're stuck where we are, and where we can find a place to live, if any.

Therefore, there needs to be greater awareness of the needs of poor people in this coming mess.

The lessons of Katrina were NOT LEARNED in terms of poverty!

[kineneb]

30. I hear you

when one is poor, one's choices about living circumstances, food, education, etc. are quite limited... something some folks just don't understand... others of us live it day to day, so we do understand

declaring medical bankruptcy was just sooo much fun :sarcasm:

ps. - think good thoughts for us, Hubby has not been feeling at all well, and goes to see the cardiac surgeon tommorrow... may have to have fluid in abdomen drawn out (ugh)... and yet another 100 mile drive for me... didn't I say something about the poor not having choices as to where they live?

[pitohui]

4. where do you plan to relocate them?

seeing that most of the united states is uninhabitable by the standards of the carpers who are angry if you live in the south, angry if you live in the north, angry if you live in the west...

hmm, atlantic and gulf coasts, hurricanes

west coast, tsunami and "fire season"

midwest and great plains, the ever increasing risk of killer tornadoes

the true northeast -- blizzards, and ironically, increasing risk of hurricanes even in manhattan and maybe even into nova scotia!

flood plains (where 70% of the pop. currently lives because rivers and waterways are the artery of the economy) -- all these will have to be relocated because of the risk of flood

all of the mountain tops will be removed for coal in appalachia once the oil is gone, so there goes the eastern mountains

the rockies are already too arid plus they too have mineral resources/rocksides

puerto rico and hawaii -- hurricane/cyclone risk

i guess that leaves guam, no wait a minute, guam too has a huge cyclone risk

i'm pretty sure there is nowhere for usa citizens to relocate

do you suggest sending us all to the international space station where there is no weather?

or maybe we need to grow up and admit that almost nowhere on earth is the african savannah in which we evolved and that as adaptive animals, we need to continue to adapt and to accept that EVERYWHERE we live will have some kind of risk?

please let us know what nation we should invade and resettle since this one isn't up to snuff?

:sarcasm: yes, a little, but i'm tired of people being unrealistic about the fact that ALL of the earth is impacted by changing climate

maybe we are all supposed to live in ohio???

[cali]

13. i don't mean to sound smug

but where I live in northern vermont is pretty sound. Not that we'd want a huge influx of people.

[pitohui]

16. you propose to resettle 300 million people in vermont?

vermont is a state that serves no known purpose, don't get me wrong but there are no jobs there, right? right after katrina a vermont guy was on me about how irresponsible it was to live in new orleans, where we have a port and oil industry, i can't even imagine what job my husband would be able to get in vermont -- turns out this guy was a freaking retiree who had a hobby farm growing apples

well jeez that's real freckin useful when the world is in flames

don't get me wrong, i'm sure vermont is a cute place to live, but if EVERYONE is relocated there, then most people will die, because it doesn't seem to have any resources other than libertarian kooks

telling us to move to vermont is just the same as saying "let them eat cake"

guess what, if everybody eats cake, your vermont is going to get pretty effing cold without our oil

[cali]

21. try reading- just for the hell of it.

I wrote that I wouldn't want to see an influx of people here, and I was responding to a post about the drawbacks of each part of the country. I personally feel safe here- and lucky. And where the FUCK do YOU get off saying Vermont serves no known purpose?? I'd never make the vile and amazingly STUPID comments about LA that you just made about Vermont.

Your ignorance is impressive.

If the world is in flames, it's likely that I'm lucky that I live here, and I have no solutions- anymore than you do, cupcake.

BTW, Vermont has given the world some amazing people: George Aiken, Bernie Sanders, Howard Dean, Pat Leahy and many others. Try comparing politicians from LA to that list- and that's just a few.

And yes, there are jobs here.

And I'm fine without your oil. I heat with wood.

I'm not suggesting you move to vermont. We don't need people like you.

[pitohui]

26. sigh, why don't people read? do people not understand context?

if you don't get it, i guess you don't get it, but you do understand that the thread is about relocating people and i asked where and you said vermont except there is no place for them in vermont and you plan to survive by cutting down the remaining trees on the planet and blah blah blah blah blah -- i mean, how do you miss that by such a wide mile?

the point is not to insult this state or that state, the point is that there aren't any alternatives and saying "vermont" is an insult on the level of saying "let them eat cake" because it's a nonsense response

you will just go in the backyard and cut down a tree so you don't need heavy industry, fine, the trouble is, 300 million people, to keep eating, DO need heavy industry, and my family, in particular, to keep eating, DOES need work and not subsistence level work but skilled work in a real industry

not cutting wood for a fire and living on air, but a real technical job, that will support more than a tiny fraction of the people on this earth and that actually pays a living wage


you made a "let them eat cake" post and then you are angry that you are called on it, but you had to know when you typed it what you were doing and that it was cruel

[Blashyrkh]

5. What do you mean "planetary" basis?

There's no way I support the coordinated relocation of mass centres of population to other centres.

Not only is it unfeasible to relocate populations of the size you are talking about, WHERE are they going to move to? A lot of Jews were moved into Palestine in the late 40's. How's that going? Oh yeah.

[GeminiProgressive]

6. unfortunately

we just need to face the fact that if DRASTIC measures are not taken NOW (which they won't be) by 2100 most humans will have died..the famines, floods, wars ect that this will cause are horrifying and considering the fact that I am only 24 and have two younger sisters..i don't think it will be a happy life or a life with retirement like our parents may still yet enjoy.

[pitohui]

17. by 2100 most of us will be dead anyway EOM

,

[burythehatchet]

25. I have two young, strong and healthy sons. I have to think about how to

prepare them without freaking them out.

[Blashyrkh]

28. That's a direct impact from Western civilisation.

The planet does not have the resources to sustain 6 billion humans for an extended period of time. We have only reached that level because our levels of technology have allowed us to utilise resources in a more (arguably less) efficient way, allowing a population well above "normal" numbers.

The human population has largely removed predators and disease from large sections which has caused the human population to exhibit unnatural behaviours. Normal populations exhibit an S-curve, where populations rise and fall in cycle dependant on different factors. Human population exhibits a J-curve, where the population breaks its natural controlling factors and spirals upwards...to a breaking point, where the size of the impacts negatively on itself. This is followed by a mass correction.

As harsh at it sounds, if the human population existed as other animal populations do then a percentage of that 6 billion would not have come into existence at all.

[Atman]

7. Feminine hygiene?

This thread smells fresh as a summer morning!

.

[Blue-Jay]

9. You obviously don't live next to a landfill.

Try waking up to that on a sultry August morning...

[gulfcoastliberal]

10. I think what the Corps of Engineers is trying to set up in Waveland, MS

is a trial run for clearing out people within the most vulnerable areas, creating buffer zones for sea level rise and storm surges. The Army Corps is proposing a buyout for residents within a certain distance of the water.

[pitohui]

18. while the buy out zone idea is probably good, why they didn't they propose it sooner?

it seems awfully unfair to those who have already rebuilt and invested 2 more years of work and substantial resources into trying to save their communities (disclosure, i'm close to someone rebuilding his home in waveland)

i'm not opposed to programs that relocate people from the most vulnerable areas but they need to be fair, even generous, programs, since you are asking people to give up their homes -- and for god's sake, i hope they will be more timely programs in the future, rather than letting people try to rebuild for over 2 years before suddenly revealing that the land may be purchased by the feds

the way it's being handled, it's almost punishing the people who were most determined and hardest working at trying to get back home first

[gulfcoastliberal]

29. Is he south of the RR tracks?

I think the tracks/Nicholson would be as far as they would go, but I don't know any details at all.

[Mojorabbit]

11. I have read a lot of

reports that state there will be mass migration of populations in the future as resources run out due to climate change. There will be a lot of wars. Too many people on the planet.
I don't think it can be coordinated. There might be a way to mitigate some of it if we knew for sure exactly how it will play out but we don't.

[Mojorabbit]

15. this article from the guardian paints a rosy picture

Climate change and an increasing population could trigger a global food crisis in the next half century as countries struggle for fertile land to grow crops and rear animals, scientists warned yesterday.

To keep up with the growth in human population, more food will have to be produced worldwide over the next 50 years than has been during the past 10,000 years combined, the experts said.

But in many countries a combination of poor farming practices and deforestation will be exacerbated by climate change to steadily degrade soil fertility, leaving vast areas unsuitable for crops or grazing.

Competition over sparse resources may lead to conflicts and environmental destruction, the scientists fear.

The warnings came as researchers from around the world convened at a UN-backed forum in Iceland on sustainable development to address the organisation's millennium development goals to halve hunger and extreme poverty by 2015.

The researchers will use the meeting to call on countries to impose strict farming guidelines to ensure that soils are not degraded so badly they cannot recover.
http://www.kitchengardeners.org/2007/09/global_food_crisis_looms.html

[Fresh_Start]

19. Remind me again....where are the 'no hazard' parts of the planet?

eom

[burythehatchet]

23. not many of those, from what I've read.

MOstly in the far north.

[soothsayer]

20. No doubt we are getting ready to take Africa's resources.

I'm sure that's one thing our new African Command is for.

[pitohui]

27. if so we'll be in for quite a shock

a great deal of africa is already desert/deforested!

[NorthernSpy]

31. minerals! oil!

Africa has lots of that kind of stuff lying under their soil.


God help them.

[NuttyFluffers]

32. if current climate changes snaps anything as fast as ice ages nowhere will be safe

the planet will be trying to discharge excess energy through violent swings that will disrupt every latitude. but hopefully the process won't be speeding up that much faster any time soon. but if it does, enjoy life for what it is, because soon you'll likely be a refugee trying to find safety anywhere. there won't be anywhere that is safe exactly, but part of the fun is the attempt, y'know?
;)

[Beerboy]

33. I'm sure the world population just can't wait to re "re-settled" by the U.S.

It seems the height of arrogance for the U.S govt to coordinate which areas are too inferior for hand-outs and suggested (or by force?) 'relocation'.
It's ideas like this that make people hate the U.S., for good reason, and will definitely guarantee more needless war.
Perhaps you mean that if the U.S. were to study and identify areas prone to repeated disasters of the same kind attributable to global climate change and funded into a pool to compensate those unable to leave, I'd be on board w/ that.
People who have lived for many generations in the same area, that we in America might find not-up-to-code would rightly respond with their local equivalent of the finger.

[KT2000]

34. Walls will be built

immigrants will be jailed

One of the features of the DVD Children of Men includes a discussion by philosophers and social scientists on this very topic. They all seemed to feel that people will respond as they are now - with fear.
The people who think ahead will figure a way to relocate if they have the money. Many will succumb for lack of the resources to relocate.

Our country has already begun the process by the fortification of our borders and a war on immigrants.

[burythehatchet]

35. good points.n/t

[Horse with no Name]

36. It is a discussion that will come with time

Humans were historically nomadic people. There had to be reasons for that.
As certain areas run out of resources, at some point in time, they will become uninhabitable (think the Southwest).
Just as the effects of Global warming will also create uninhabitable areas.
The problem is, the majority of the majority of people are NOT ready to have these discussions, but I feel that they will certainly become relevant in MY lifetime.

[halobeam]

37. Good post.

Though, I do think it is time, right now, to be discussing this. Climate refugees in large numbers are already occurring. It will be our land at one point, so why not start at least discussing it now. I know people aren't ready to have this discussion, maybe those ready to, ought to start bringing it up more and more and get them ready.

I have a parent in Atlanta, not worried at all about water. (Just another thing to keep under the rug along w/ everything else she isn't ready to discuss, quite frankly) So, I've had a lifetime of training on discussing crucial issues that are "uncomfortable" to people who want to bury their heads in the sand. They always seem so damn surprised when shit hits the fan, too. It goes together. I've taken the hard knocks being the one to stir shit up, pardon my french, but the shit is there and it stinks and I want to get rid of it. I've endured this my whole life, and I'll endure talking about reality to those who'd rather live outside it, than in it.

Time is now, and maybe those of us who understand that people aren't ready to have these discussions, better get themselves ready to discuss this, with those who aren't ready.

Their last 'jolly' days of blissful ignorance will be the signature on all our death certificates. This time, they will just have to be "uncomfortable" and be told, no matter what age they are, they will always have things to learn. No matter what situation they are in, it will be changing. No matter how scary something is, you can't hide from it or it'll definitely take you out unless you stand up and face it. No matter what you think you know, you can always know MORE.

That is just one hell of an "Inconvenient Truth", and isn't THAT ironic!

*rant off, noticed a nerve got touched by my upbringing. Not directing anything negative at you.