Download The Effect of Environmental Refugees Upon Biospheric Health and

THE EFFECT OF
ENVIRONMENTAL
REFUGEES UPON
BIOSPHERIC HEALTH AND
INTEGRITY
John Cairns, Jr.
University Distinguished Professor of Environmental Biology Emeritus
Department of Biological Sciences
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, Virginia 24061, U.S.A.
June 2010
ENVIROMENTAL REFUGEES ARE CREATED
WHEN SOME PART OF THE BIOSPHERE
CHANGES AND BECOMES INHOSPITABLE OR
THE CARRYING CAPACITY OF THE REGION IS
EXCEEDED.
 Protecting biospheric health and integrity in all areas of the planet
is an effective, long-term strategy to reduce the number of
environmental refugees.
 Nations usually do what is perceived to be in their own best
interest.
 When environmental refugees arrive in a region, they will probably
harm the biosphere of that region.
 Most people prefer to stay where they are if the regional
biosphere does not deteriorate. Smith1 quotes Glenn Albrecht as
saying: “People have heart’s ease when they’re on their own
country. If you force them off that country, if you take them away
from their land, they feel the loss of heart’s ease as a kind of
vertigo, a disintegration of their whole life.”
 Enabling potential refugees to stay in their own country should be
a good investment, unless the indigenous people have continued
adverse effects upon the regional biosphere.
ILLUSTRATIVE FACTORS
GENERATING ENVIRONMENTAL
REFUGEES
 Desertification is expanding deserts and engulfing agricultural or
grazing lands.
 Exponential population growth ignores regional carrying capacity.
 Droughts or floods are caused by dramatic changes in rainfall
patterns and increased percentage of impervious surfaces (e.g.,
roofs, parking lots).
 Sea level rise and increased impact from storm surges are
damaging formerly habitable areas.
 Ice barriers that previously protected coastal areas are being lost
(e.g., in Alaska).
 Increased temperatures favor geographic expansion of both
diseases and invasive species.
 Melting glaciers increase variability of river flow.
EACH TIME HUMANKIND REACHES A
BIOSPHERIC TIPPING POINT, THE EFFECT
SHOULD BE EQUIVALENT TO HITTING A
SPEED BUMP WITH AN AUTOMOBILE – A
WARNING.
 Ignoring warnings ensures that the number of environmental
refugees will increase – rapidly at times and in the millions.
 Ignoring warnings is due both to a massive, well financed
disinformation campaign2 and the comparatively long lag time
required for major social change.
 Unfortunately, the poor, third-world nations are presently
suffering much more from the effects of climate change than the
wealthy, developed nations.
 However, the most attractive places for environmental refuges are
the wealthy nations.
AS DAMAGE TO THE BIOSPHERE
WORSENS, THE VARIABILITY OF ITS
ECOLOGICAL ATTRIBUTES WILL INCREASE,
MAKING MORE PROBLEMS FOR THE
ATTEMPTS BY HOMO SAPIENS TO ADJUST.
 Major climate changes are irreversible; consequently,
environmental refugees will not return to the country from which
they migrated.
 In 2009, the ecological overshoot was 40%, which means 1.4 Earths
would be needed to support present, unsustainable practices
(http://www.footprintnetwork.org).
 The planet should prepare for 500 million refugees
(peopleandplantet.nt1).
 Environmental refugees are desperate people with nothing to lose.
WHAT WILL THE NEW “HOST”
NATION DO ABOUT THE NOW
PERMANENT RESIDENTS?
 All the refugees will need food, water, shelter, medical attention, police
protection, education, and sanitation.
 Financing will be problematic – the refugees will probably be destitute.
 If citizens of the “host” nation share their resources, significantly less
resources per capita will be available for the original citizens.
 Should protecting natural capital (the biosphere) be preserved for
future generations instead of using it to help refugees?
SHOULD REFUGEES BE EXPECTED TO
FOLLOW THE CULTURAL NORMS OF THE
“HOST” NATION OR SHOULD THEY BE
PERMITTED TO RETAIN THEIR OWN
CULTURAL NORMS?
 Cultural identities are already an unresolved problem in
many host nations that regard the cultural norms of refugees
as a threat.
 A nation’s culture is the core of its identity, which might be
lost if “diluted.”
 On the other hand, a culture many be lost if the refugees are
not permitted to retain their own norms.
 The situation of people living in misery in a crowded refugee
camp is an ideal point of origin for pandemic disease, which
would decrease the security of the host nation.
IF BOTH THE “HOST” NATION AND
THE REFUGEES ARE TO STAY WITHIN THE
REGION’S CARRYING CAPACITY FOR
HUMANS, POPULATION CONTROL WILL BE
ESSENTIAL.
 The issue of population control has never been popular and is
generally fiercely resisted.
 Population control would require major cultural adjustments for both
the citizens of the host nation and the refugees.
 Nothing else could provoke religious, cultural, or individual outrage
that even the mention of the issue of population control does.
 However, on a finite planet, perpetual exponential population growth
is simply not sustainable.
 Should population control be left to starvation, disease, and death?
THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF
POPULATION CONTROL IS TO REDUCE THE
MISERY RESULTING FROM THE
POPULATION INCREASING FASTER THAN
RESOURCES ON A FINITE PLANET.
 Environmental refugees increase the demand for all types of
environmental and social services but not the supply.
 Decreasing natural capital (i.e., the biosphere) to help refugees may be
viewed as an act of compassion in the short term. However, leaving a
habitable planet for future generations yet unborn is a long-term act of
compassion.
 Deciding between the two choices is not easy, especially since one
choice is close in time and distance while the other is remote in both.
IF HUMANKIND’S GOAL IS TO PRESERVE
THE BIOSPHERIC LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR
FUTURE GENERATIONS, ACTIONS THAT
APPEAR TO LACK COMPASSION WILL BE
NECESSARY.
 Nations with an ecological overshoot that accept any environmental
refugees will damage further their regional component of the
biospheric life support system.
 Citizens of nations with ecological overshoot are at risk of becoming
environmental refugees.
 Actions that appear noble and compassionate will adversely affect
future generations if the health and integrity of the biospheric life
support system is impaired.
 However, environmental refugees can be helped without impairing the
biospheric life support system if citizens are prepared to reduce
markedly fossil fuel and renewable resource consumption.
ALL HUMANS HAVE A STAKE IN
PRESERVING BIOSPHERIC HEALTH AND
INTEGRITY, BUT CONVINCING HUMANKIND
WILL NOT BE EASY.
 Nurturing the biosphere will require a sense of global community
unprecedented in human history.
 The most formidable obstacle to nurturing would be an increased
number and ferocity of resource wars that have occurred throughout
human history, although they have frequently been misidentified as
wars for other reasons – ethnic, religious, etc.
 Resource wars markedly reduce resources available for civilian use and
usually damage portions of the biosphere.
SOCIETAL COLLAPSE IS OFTEN SWIFT AND
“UNEXPECTED” BECAUSE THE ILLUSION OF
STABILITY ENCOURAGES PEOPLE TO ACT AS
IF THE THINGS THEY TAKE FOR GRANTED
AND DEPEND UPON WILL ALWAYS BE
THERE.
 There have been numerous examples, even in the 21st century, of how
fragile social and ecological systems can be: the earthquake in Haiti, the
global financial meltdown, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the debt in the
European Union.
 Even Earth’s climate is no longer as dependable as it once was due to
anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
 Although combustion of fossil fuels is altering Earth’s climate
irreversibly, many people and corporations strongly resist changing to
alternative, non-carbon sources of energy (e.g., solar, wind).
 Most of humankind’s practices (e.g., exponential population growth) are
not environmentally cost free and failure to face that reality will
produce millions of environmental refugees.
AMONG THE THREATS TO THE BIOSPHERE ARE
EIGHT INTERACTIVE GLOBAL CRISES: HUMAN
ECONOMY, CLIMATE CHANGE, EXPONENTIAL
HUMAN POPULATION GROWTH, ECOLOGICAL
OVERSHOOT, BIOTIC IMPOVERISHMENT AND
REDUCTION OF BIODIVERSITY, RENEWABLE
RESOURCE DEPLETION, ENERGY ALLOCATION, AND
ENVIROMENTAL REFUGEES.3
 Since all eight of these crises are interactive, a worsening situation in
any one of the areas would probably increase the number of
environmental refugees and have adverse effects on one or more of the
other seven.
 Conversely, reducing the urgency of the crisis in any of the areas would
reduce the threat of an environmental refugee crisis.
 A probable benefit of the interactions is that more attention might be
given to the entire system, as well as the biosphere.
FAILED STATES POSE A SPECIAL
PROBLEM SINCE THEY ARE AT HIGH RISK
AND LACK STABILITY.4
 Failed states are nations that are most likely to produce substantial
numbers of environmental refugees.
 Failed states are also candidates as sources of pandemic disease.
 Since the global ecological overshoot is 40%, any aid will result in more
hardship if the overshoot is not eliminated and aid is given to a
significant number of failed states.
 The basic problem is one of both ethics and balancing risks.
REDUCING THE CONDITIONS THAT
PRODUCE ENVIRONMENTAL
REFUGEES
IS A FORMIDABLE TASK.
 The default position – doing nothing – could easily result in millions,
even billions, of deaths.
 Humane reduction of the human population to match Earth’s carrying
capacity must begin now.
NO INDIVIDUAL OR
NATION CAN ESCAPE THE
DELETERIOUS EFFECTS OF
RUNAWAY CLIMATE
CHANGE.
Acknowledgments. I am indebted to Darla Donald for transcribing the handwritten draft and for editorial assistance in
preparation for publication and to Valerie Sutherland for converting it to Power Point.
References
1Smith,
D. B. 2010 Is there an ecological unconscious? New York Times 31Jan http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/
magazine/31ecopsych-t.html
2Hoggan,
3Cairns,
4
J. 2009. Climate Cover-up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming. Greystone Books, Vancouver, Canada.
J. Jr. 2010. Threats to the biosphere: eight interactive global crises. Journal of Cosmology 8:19-6-1915.
Failed States Index. 2009. The Fund for Peace, Washington, DC. http://www.fundforpeace.org/web/index.php.